Peace Psychology in Asia
Senior Editorial Advisory Board James Liu Diane Bretherton Joseph Camilleri Susan McKay Emiko Kashima Yoshihisa Kashima Kwok Leung
Cristina Jayme Montiel · Noraini M. Noor Editors
Peace Psychology in Asia
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Editors Cristina Jayme Montiel Psychology Department Ateneo de Manila University PO Box 154, 1099 Manila Philippines
Noraini M. Noor International Islamic University Malaysia 53100 Kuala Lumpur Jalan Gombak Malaysia
ISBN 978-1-4419-0142-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-0143-9 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9 Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2009928679 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Foreword
The region of Asia has traditionally been acknowledged as a place of peace and harmony, attributed in great part to Eastern cosmology that upholds a philosophy of respecting diversity and creating harmony between human–God, human–human, and human–nature. Asia has also been regarded by many as the cradle of civilization. Many world religions and great faiths have major strongholds in the continent of Asia: from Hinduism and Buddhism, to Jewish, Christianity, Islam, and other faiths such as Shinto and Taoism. All strongly support and encourage their adherents to promote justice and create peace among all fellow human beings on earth. All Asian-born diverse religions and faiths convey the same message of peace: inner peace or salaam (Islam) and shalom (Jewish); peace, love, and mercy (Christianity); avoidance of violence or ahimsa (Hinduism); and absence of all chaos or nirvana (Buddhism). However, it is disheartening to witness that Asia too is not immune to violent tensions and conflicts that have become key features that characterize many regions of the world. Direct and structural violence in the form of genocides, human trafficking, political and economic injustices such as poverty and corruption, ethnopolitical conflicts, and environmental conflicts, to name but a few, are occurring within underdeveloped and developing countries of Asia. Religiously nuanced conflict is also more common nowadays and has torn many Asian societies apart. Divisive claims of truth, compounded by economic and political imbalances, have often led to primordial sentiments. Religious discord and ethnic particularism have begun to respond to increased globalization and widening structural incompatibility as an anti-systemic counter-reaction. We should also note the increasing use of armed violence as an instrument to both resolve problem and achieve political objectives. We continue to witness the display of military prowess as an instrument of problem-solving by major powers such as the United States and its allies against countries unwilling to support the so-called Western hegemony. Global injustice pervades. As a result, violent conflicts erupted, making peace even more elusive. India, China, Tibet, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, and Taiwan are only a few examples where conflicts that take place in various geopolitical realms are quite latent, manifest, and protracted. Religions too have warned us about the potentials of human beings in shedding darkness, aside from illuminating lights into humanity. Islam, for instance, warns v
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that human beings have an intrinsic tendency to do harm and damage on earth. The Qur’an cites dialogue between God and angels on the divine plan to create human being, the first and the only creature equipped with a free mind and a free will. Qur’an states in the chapter of al-Baqarah 29–30: “Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: ‘I will create a vicegerent on earth.’ They said: ‘Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood? – whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?’ He said: ‘I know what ye know not.’” Hence, as we witness social suffering and conflicts in the Asian region, we may tend to lamentably justify that all of these are incurable, plunging ourselves to despair that a just and peaceful world for Asia is impossible to realize. But there is hope. I do believe that instead, we shall hold on to the conviction that we, as women and men of faith, never give up in our struggle to help the creation of positive peace in our region and the world. We should continue to pursue our common dream of a new world civilization based on social justice, equality, harmony, and prosperity. Various initiatives in these areas show that religions and religious leaders do have a positive role in the pursuit of justice and the building of peaceful communities. Deeply committed religious people are poised to take leaderships in the cause of reconciliation and service to the poor and disenfranchised. Religion does serve as a source of values and norms that could provide guidance for a peaceful and just world based on mutual understanding, mutual respect, and equality. Again, as an example from Islam, the Qur’an outlines in the chapter of al-Maidah: “O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.” There will be no peace without justice and no justice without persons enjoying basic human rights. One way of achieving such objective is to work collaboratively not only to eradicate violence, but also to promote and advance the vision of shared security. The attainment of the vision of shared security, adopted at the Religions for Peace Eight World Assembly in Kyoto in August 2006, is not an easy task. However, it is a common obligation of all sectors in the society – the governments, civil societies, business community, and religious communities – to strive for the attainment of shared security at all levels: within a community, between communities, among the community of nation-states, and more importantly, among different civilizations and people of different faiths. It is in light of all the above considerations, this important book cannot be more relevant and timely in offering understandings of violence and conflict in the Asian context. As a new, emerging discipline, peace psychology has started to give a meaningful contribution to peacebuilding and peacemaking for diverse Asian communities. This volume illuminates the peace discourse in a region shattered by direct and structural violence, by looking at subjective and objective human phenomena that are related to peace. In an Asia context, the elimination of global injustice alone cannot guarantee the birth of a world free from violent tensions and conflicts. Many Asian societies still possess a colonial legacy saturated with direct and structurally violent collective
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memories, social practices, and cultural narratives. Many countries in the Asian region likewise continue to bear the yoke of authoritarian governments, as well as superpower hegemonies. Collective feelings of oppressiveness, perceived injustice, victimhood, and besieged mentality feed on the already existing political and economic grievances. These social psychological realities need to be addressed respectfully and pragmatically by all segments of societies, and peace psychology contributes to this regional challenge. Respect for human rights, and a democratic political order, are the paths that all of us should take in the Asian region. Human rights and freedom are the essence of all religious teachings: human beings should be liberated from exploitation by other human beings. The creation of political, economic, and cultural orders that ensure and respect human dignity in all three arenas – local, regional, and global – should be made a priority by both Asian state actors and civil societies. Jakarta, Indonesia
Din Syamsuddin
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Preface
Our volume on Peace Psychology in Asia is a fruit of indigenous praxis in the region. Most of the chapter authors are Asian psychologists based in Asian universities. The volume brings together scholarly works about Asian peace and conflict, written not only as intellectual products, but also as attempts to make sense of our everyday lives in divided and war-torn societies. Our book illuminates the psychological terrain of social peace and conflict in Asia. We hope to participate, as psychologists, in the multidisciplinary dialogue about global peace and realize that social peace is too complex a human phenomenon to be understood by a single disciplinary lens. Neither psychology nor any other discipline can address peace conditions in a monologue, because peace issues traverse sociology, anthropology, political science, and even literature, theology, and philosophy. Hence we write this book for a wide array of readers – psychologists and non-psychologists, practitioners and scholars, students, policyshapers, activists, and non-governmental organizations – who want to get a picture of the psychological base of peace in Asia. Our chapters cover conflicts in societies like India, Kashmir, Taiwan, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. But the innovative psychological concepts, methods, and practices put forward may inform other societies as well, especially in other volatile regions like Africa, Middle East, and South America. We emphasize subjective and collective aspects of peacebuilding and invite you to read about the paths to social peace we identify, such as syncretic cultures, pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools), collective remembering, ethnic and religious identities, technology in the service of massive mobilizations, forgiveness and justice, and community-based peacebuilding. The chapters of this book come mainly from three recent psychology conferences in the Asian region. The volume was conceived at the 10th International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace in Indonesia’s Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta and Universitas Gadjah Mada, and we are grateful to our international peace psychology colleagues for their contagious enthusiasm. At the 7th Biennial Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology held at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and the 9th International Conference on Social Representations in Bali, Indonesia, we learned more about other peace psychology works being carried out by Asian colleagues. The regional meetings also provided ix
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the venue for paper presentations and private discussions with authors about their developing drafts. We thank the many individuals and institutions that supported the making of this book. Peace Psychology series editor Dan Christie brought up the idea of a volume on Asian peace psychology and has been our companion in this journey ever since. We most deeply appreciate Dan’s brilliant yet culture-sensitive editorial guidance. Leading scholars from the Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace (CPSP), Asian Association of Social Psychology (AASP), and Australia/New Zealand universities also reviewed the manuscripts and offered the writers useful feedback. For their sage advice, we are grateful to our senior editorial advisory board members Diane Bretherton, Joseph Camilleri, Susan McKay, Emiko Kashima, Yoshihisa Kashima, and Kwok Leung. We especially thank James Liu, who volunteered to review many more manuscripts “beyond call of duty” and gave us and other writers not only detailed suggestions but also one-on-one discussion time during the Social Representations conference. For our Foreword, we thank peace psychologist Yayah Khisbiyah for bridging us to the Chair of Muhammadiyah Indonesia and President of the Asian Committee on Religions for Peace. Thank you Din Syamsuddin for this volume’s introductory piece. We appreciate the collegial support extended by our respective Psychology Departments as we worked on the book. Tina thanks her colleagues at the Ateneo de Manila University for their intellectual and personal friendships and graduate students Cecilia Bulos and Joanne Marie Diaz who provided editorial assistance for this book. Noraini extends her heartfelt gratitude to colleague Adrian Harre for editorial help and the International Islamic University Malaysia for granting her a stint in Cape Town providing her with a space to work without distractions. Our own sensitivities and insights for a volume on Asian peace psychology arose out of personal histories as well, and we are happy to dedicate this volume to the individuals, groups, and experiences that colored our reflexive scholarly lenses on social peace. Tina offers this book to the memory of Fr. Jose Blanco, SJ, the Jesuit priest who recruited her to a youth movement for social liberation, when Tina was in high school. She remained a Filipino social activist for the next 40 years. She likewise dedicates this volume to her political companions, living and dead/killed – comrades, they called each other – in KASAPI and PDP-LABAN. She is particularly grateful to her woman friends in the movement – Susan Cellano, Angge PacificoHerrera, and Doris Nuval – who loved their country’s freedom as passionately as they loved and protected their little children in the midst of a ruthless martial law. She also appreciates her academic mentors Patricia Licuanan and Mary Racelis, who inspired her to develop a teaching-research career in a Philippine setting. Tina thanks her colleagues in the international peace psychology community who patiently dialogued with her and extended good friendships through the years – Dan Christie, Susie McKay, Judy van Hoorn, Mike Wessells, Di Bretherton, Deb Winter, Klaus Boehnke, Andy Dawes, and many many more – from the bottom of her grateful heart, she thanks you all. And especially, this book is for Tina’s son Andoy, born and lovingly raised during the dark days of martial law; this is also for Tina’s beloved
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daughter-in-law Sab Paner-Montiel and grandson Nathan. Andoy, Sab, and Nathan enkindle Tina’s life and give sense to everything else. Noraini dedicates this book to her family. To husband Adin who is always there for her. To children Yuhanna, Elias, and Hirzi, who have grown up in different countries and gone through diverse experiences – may you all find your paths in life that can bring you closer to God and fellow men and women. Manila, Philippines Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Cristina Jayme Montiel Noraini M. Noor
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Contents
Part I
Introduction to Peace Psychology in Asia
Overview of Peace Psychology in Asia: Research, Practice, and Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cristina Jayme Montiel
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Culture, Social Representations, and Peacemaking: A Symbolic Theory of History and Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . James H. Liu and Chris G. Sibley
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Part II
South Asia
Where Are We Going? Perspective on Hindu–Muslim Relations in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sammyh S. Khan and Ragini Sen Political Violence and Peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir . . . . . . Waheeda Khan
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Part III Southeast Asia Peace Psychology of Grassroots Reconciliation: Lessons Learned from the “Baku Bae” Peace Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hamdi Muluk and Ichsan Malik
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Memory for Sale: How Groups “Distort” Their Collective Memory for Reconciliation Purposes and Building Peace . . . . . . . . Hamdi Muluk
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Contested Discourses on Violence, Social Justice, and Peacebuilding Among Indonesian Muslims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yayah Khisbiyah
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Interreligious Harmony and Peacebuilding in Indonesian Islamic Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Florian Pohl
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The Future of Malay–Chinese Relations in Malaysia . . . . . . . . . . . Noraini M. Noor A Positioning Analysis of Moro Women’s Participation During and After the MNLF–GRP War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brenda S. Batistiana Human-Technology Interface in Philippine People Power . . . . . . . . Ma. Regina E. Estuar and Cristina J. Montiel Part IV
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East Asia
Forgiveness for Conflict Resolution in Asia: Its Compatibility with Justice and Social Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ken-ichi Ohbuchi and Naomi Takada
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Toward Reconciliation of Historical Conflict Between Japan and China: Design Science for Peace in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tomohide Atsumi and Koichi Suwa
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Is the Third Way Possible for Peace? The Dilemma of National Identity in Taiwan and Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Li-Li Huang
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Income Gap, Materialism, and Attitude toward the Rich in Developing Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fan Zhou
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Part V
Future of Peace Psychology in Asia
How Asia Can Contribute to World Peace Psychology: Creating a Dignified and Peaceful World by Employing Unity in Diversity . . . . Evelin Lindner
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The Future of Peace Psychology in Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Noraini M. Noor
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Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Contributors
Brenda S. Batistiana is a student of the PhD Program in Social-Organizational Psychology of the Ateneo de Manila’s Psychology Department. She has been involved in social development work for 27 years, doing rural community organizing, national networking, and coalition building with non-governmental organizations, and consulting work in the areas of gender and development, peacebuilding, and community participation. Her publications include Rural Community Organizing in the Philippines (1995), Training Manual for Women-Leaders of Co-operatives in Asia (2001), and Training Manual and Toolkits on Gender Responsive Peacebuilding (2007). Regina Estuar is an assistant professor and full-time faculty at the Ateneo de Manila University where she holds a degree in Master of Science in Computer Science and a PhD in Social Psychology. She is currently the Research Director of the Ateneo Java Wireless Competency Center. She has published articles related to how people use and adopt technology and how use of technology changes society in various contexts including social movements. Li-Li Huang a native Taiwanese, is a psychology professor of National TsingHua University. She works on Indigenous Chinese Psychology researches about harmony and conflict, ethnic identity, and gender. She is now chief editor of the Chinese Journal of Psychology and past president of Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association (2000–2001). Her book Interpersonal Harmony and Conflict: An Indigenous Chinese Theory and Empirical Studies received many professional awards and was regarded as the representative of third-generation indigenous Chinese psychology. Her paper on “The Double Identity of Taiwanese Chinese: A Dilemma of Politics and Culture Rooted in History” garnered the Misumi Award of 2005 from the Asian Association of Social Psychology. Sammyh Khan is a PhD student at the Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research (CACR), Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Being born in Sweden of Indian Muslim and Israeli Jewish parents, intergroup relations in the developing world have always been a very salient feature in Sammyh’s life. His xv
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current PhD research investigates the ideologies of the Hindu nationalist movement in India from a social psychological perspective and their implications for communal conflict and harmony among Hindus and Muslims. Sammyh has authored publications in journals such as the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, European Journal of Social Psychology, New Zealand Journal of Psychology and Sex Roles, addressing topics ranging from intergroup attributions in India to biculturalism and identity in New Zealand. Waheeda Khan is a professor at the Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia (a Central University), Delhi, India. She has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience. Her research areas are related to environment, terrorism/violence, HIV/AIDS counseling, mental health, stress, emotion and coping in adolescents, youth, and women. She has been the recipient of JRF/SRF and PostDoctoral Research Associate awards by the government of India and Fellowship of the Year award by NESA. Her important publications include Impact of Terrorism on Mental Health and Coping of Adolescents and Adults in Kashmir (2002), Terrorism and Conflict Resolution in India (2005), Mapping Expressive Differences Around the World: A Thirty Country Study of Display Rules,and Culture, Emotion Regulation and Adjustment (coauthored with David Matsumoto and others, 2007). Yayah Khisbiyah is an assistant professor at the Psychology Department, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, where she is also the founding director of the Center for Cultural Studies and Social Change. She has been a consultant for UN organizations on psychosocial issues of children’s well-being and community peacebuilding, particularly in conflict-torn areas. She has a master’s degree in Community Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, USA (1997), and is currently finishing a PhD degree in Social/Peace Psychology at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her scholarly and applied interests revolve around intergroup relations, coexistence education, and the role of religion in peacebuilding. Evelin G. Lindner is a social scientist with an interdisciplinary orientation. She holds two PhDs, one in medicine and another in psychology. She is the founding director and president of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. Her books Making Enemies: Humiliation and International Conflict (2006) and Emotion and Conflict: How Human Rights Can Dignify Emotion and Help Us Wage Good Conflict (2009) have been published by Praeger/Greenwood; Making Enemies was awarded the CHOICE 2007 Outstanding Academic Title. She is guest professor at international universities such as University of Oslo (Norway), Columbia University Conflict Resolution Network (New York), and the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (Paris). James Liu is Associate Professor of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington and Deputy Director of its Centre for Applied Cross Cultural Research. He was born in Taiwan and grew up in the United States. He completed a PhD in
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Social Psychology in 1992 at UCLA. He has been at Victoria University since 1994. His research area is in cross-cultural psychology and intergroup relations and social identity, where he specializes in the study of identity and history. He has more than 100 academic publications. He was Secretary General of the Asian Association of Social Psychology and is editor of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology. Ichsan Malik is the Director of the Indonesian Peace Building Institute, formerly known as the Baku Bae Movement, one out of 64 success stories of grassroots reconciliation in the world chosen by the European Centre for Conflict Prevention. Malik presented the success story of Baku Bae at the global conference “From Reaction to Prevention: Civil Society Forging Partnership to Prevent Violent Conflict and Build Peace,” hosted by the UN in New York last July 2005. He also teaches at the University of Indonesia’s Department of Psychology graduate program, where he obtained his postgraduate degree in social psychology. Cristina Jayme Montiel is professor of social psychology at the Ateneo de Manila University’s Psychology Department. During the Marcos dictatorship, she chaired Lingap Bilanggo (Care for Prisoners), a social movement for the general amnesty of all Filipino political prisoners. Montiel has carried out teaching/research visits to Xiamen University (China), National University of Malaysia, University of Hawaii, Ohio State University, Georgetown University, Technical University of Chemnitz (Germany), and The Australian National University. Her recent publications include Political Psychology of Nonviolent Democratic Transitions in Southeast Asia (2006) and Effects of Political Framing and Perceiver’s Social Position on Trait Attributions of a Terrorist/Freedom-Fighter (2008). Hamdi Muluk is senior lecturer at Department of Psychology at University of Indonesia and also coordinates the Psychology Department’s Master and Doctoral program. He obtained his PhD in Political Psychology from University of Indonesia in July 2004. His dissertation dealt with the role of collective memory in community reconciliation after political repression. His research interest covers the topics of social and political psychology and peace psychology, such as terrorism, prejudice, voting behavior, and conflict resolution. With the recent eruption of social conflict in Indonesia, he actively participated in the Baku Movement and Indonesian Peace Building Institute to build peace in Indonesia. He also served as the associate in the Centre for Research on Inter-group Relations and Conflict Resolution (CERIC) at University of Indonesia. Noraini M. Noor is professor at the Department of Psychology, International Islamic University Malaysia. Her research areas are related to women’s work and family roles in relation to well-being, women’s empowerment, and health. She is also interested in the role of religion in peace building. She has been a recipient of the Chevening and Commonwealth Fellowship Awards, with research attachment at the University of Oxford, England in 1996 and 1999–2000, respectively. Her recent publications include Malaysian Women’s State of Psychological Well-Being: Empir-
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ical Validation of a Conceptual Model (2006), Work and Women’s Well-Being: Religion and Age as Moderators (2008), and Terrorism, Democracy, the West and the Muslim World (2007, a book coedited with Abdul Rashid Moten). Ken-ichi Ohbuchi is professor of social psychology at the Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. He received his PhD from Tohoku University. He was president of the Japanese Association of Criminal Psychology, editor of the Japanese Journal of Social Psychology, and a member of the executive committees of the Japanese Association of Social Psychology and Japanese Group Dynamics Association. His research topics are aggression, social conflict, and justice. His recent works include an edited book, Social Justice in Japan (Trans Pacific Press, 2006). Florian Pohl is assistant professor for religious studies at Emory University’s Oxford College in Georgia, USA. His field of research is Southeast Asian Islam with a special focus on questions of contemporary religious expression and public life. For the past six years, he also has been affiliated with the Center for Religious and Cross-cultural Studies (CRCS) at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, through research and teaching. His recent publications include a chapter on “Islamic Education and Civil Society: Reflections on the Pesantren Tradition in Contemporary Indonesia ” in the book Islam and Education: Myths and Truths (University of Chicago Press, 2007). Ragini Sen studied Psychology at Delhi University and earned her PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Subsequently she has continued with her researches in the area of gender, population, social change, and ethnic conflict and is the author of We, The Billion (Sage, 2003). Dr. Sen has worked as Head of Social Research, India and Nepal, with MARG (now AC-Nielsen) and has also lectured at Delhi University. She is currently Director, Logistics India. She has presented and published her work in the area of social representations in various international journals/conferences and continues to be part of multicultural ongoing studies on Religious Identity and Perceptions of World History. Dr. Sen is a trustee of Navnirmiti, a member of the India Organising Committee (IOC) of the WSF and Peace Mumbai. Chris G. Sibley completed his PhD in 2005 and is currently a lecturer in the psychology department at The University of Auckland. His research interests focus on intergroup relations, particularly on the interplay between personality and situational factors affecting prejudice, and research on the form and function of ideologies used to justify discrimination in different social contexts. Koichi Suwa is a postdoctoral fellow of Urban Research Plaza at Osaka City University, Japan. He received his PhD in human sciences from Osaka University in 2006. He has published articles related to how to encourage local peoples’ activity in urban communities. He also has been involved in empowerment processes of non-
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profit organizations both as a researcher and as a volunteer member of a nonprofit organization for civil society in Kobe. Naomi Takada is a student of the Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. Her PhD research investigates determinants of forgiveness in interpersonal and intergroup conflicts. Her publications include “Forgiveness and justice: Victim psychology in conflict resolution” in K. Ohbuchi (Ed.), Social justice in Japan (Trans Pacific Press, 2006) and “Forgiveness in interpersonal conflict: Motives for forgiveness and interpersonal relationships with offender [Japanese]” in Japanese Journal of Social Psychology. Tomohide Atsumi is associate professor of Center for the Study of Communication-Design at Osaka University, Japan. He received his PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1993. He served as the president of Japanese Group Dynamics Association and keeps close contact with Asian Association of Social Psychology. He has been interested in social issues from theoretical and practical perspectives. Besides the work in history and peace issues, he has been involved in disaster relief, recovery, and revitalization processes both as a researcher and as a volunteer member of a nonprofit organization for disaster since the 1995 Kobe earthquake. His recent publications include a theoretical article in Asian Journal of Social Psychology, a book chapter on history coauthored by Dr. James Liu, and a picture book for the public to enjoy disaster preparedness. Fan Zhou is associate professor of the School of Management, Zhejiang University, China. He received his PhD in psychology from Beijing University in 2005. His research interests include conflict, justice, individual differences, social entrepreneurship, and labor relations. In addition to his formal research work, he is also very interested in Chinese history and civil society’s development in China during the current industrialization process.
Part I
Introduction to Peace Psychology in Asia
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Overview of Peace Psychology in Asia: Research, Practice, and Teaching Cristina Jayme Montiel
Peace Psychology in Asia: Research, Practice, and Teaching A recent landmark paper on peace psychology punctuates the need to anchor the discipline in geohistorical settings (Christie, Tint, Wagner, & Winter, 2008). This volume presents peace psychology in a regional context that includes East, South, and Southeast Asia.
The Nature of Peace Psychology in Asia In order to understand the social landscape that plays into the psychology of peace in Asia, one may need to view peace-related subjectivities through telescopic rather than microscopic lenses. This chapter is divided into three sections, each corresponding to a proposition about peace psychology in Asia. First, social peace and violence are embedded in more macro-layers beyond the individual, like politics, history, and culture. Second, direct and structural peace interact contingently with each other. Further, the discipline takes an ethical position to pursue nonviolence (direct peace) on all layers and to stand on the side of more equal structural configurations (structural peace). Third, despite its emphasis on macro-social phenomena, peace psychology remains attendant to that which is subjective, addressing not only the nature of subjectivities at the individual and group levels but also cultural narratives that support peaceful processes and egalitarian structures.
Embeddedness of Peace and Violence in Macro-layers Peace psychology sees violence and peace embedded in layered analytical units that may vary in size from individuals, groups, social movements, states, and global systems. These layered human processes continuously interact with each other (Montiel & Christie, 2008). But even beyond providing a multi-layered and dynamic lens, peace psychology provides an ethical position to transform all layers toward peace. C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_1, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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Peace psychology in Asia is saturated with history, politics, and culture. Political history comes to fore not only as a source of collective memories that press on present-day subjectivities, but also as a shaper of context conditions that impinge on contemporary peace and conflict situations. Culture, or rather cultures in Asia, provide indigenous ways of peacemaking. The first section of this chapter addresses political history and culture as they affect peace and social justice in the Asian context. Throughout, I draw on research and findings from chapters that appear in the present volume. Political history and peace psychology in Asia. To understand peace in Asia, one needs to understand the nature of its history (Noor, Chapter 17, this volume). Asian history is characterized by foreign occupations, a devastating World War II, domestic dictatorships during the Cold War, and present-day transitions to democracy usually marked by active nonviolent power shifts and social destabilizations during a volatile transition period. Centuries of foreign colonization continue to impact on contemporary conflicts. A number of chapters in this volume note the role of colonization in peace in Asia. For example, in India, Hindu–Muslim conflicts date back to British rule, as Hinduizing India became identified with nationalist aspirations, and the Muslim League organized in 1906 to strengthen Muslim influence in British India (Khan & Sen, this volume). The British likewise employed the divide and rule policy that prepared the grounds for communal divisions in Malaysia, as the colonizers encouraged unregulated labor immigrations of Chinese and Indians to harvest local mineral resources and cultivate rubber estates (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume). An account of the Ambon conflict in Indonesia (Muluk & Malik, this volume) details how Muslim–Christian divisions can be traced back to Dutch policies of divide et impera (divide and rule) in an attempt to control the thriving Maluku spice trade. The history of World War II in Asia is a narrative of Japanese invasions. The impact of World War II on today’s peace psychology has to do with issues revolving around remembering and forgiving such invasions. Ohbuchi & Takada (this volume) not only examine the dynamics of forgiveness in a laboratory, but also look into implications of forgiveness in Japan–Korea tensions traceable to the Pacific War. On the other hand, Atsumi & Suwa (this volume) raise issues of forgiveness in relation to China–Japan relations and how peaceful relations between China and Japan may necessitate remembering World War II events like the Nanjing Massacre. Because of its history of colonial subjugations, Asian populations tend to be wary of presentday foreign political intrusions in the name of peace or democracy. Despite colonial attempts to dominate the lands of Asia, pockets of independence and sovereignty have survived the onslaught of foreign occupations. One example of this is the Indonesian pesantran, traditional institutions of Islamic learning, which resisted Dutch attempts to dominate Indonesia schools with the European-style school system (Pohl, this volume). In Mindanao, Moro struggles for independence from the central Philippine government date back to the Moro people’s successful repudiation of Spanish and American subjugations in the Philippines since the 16th century (Batistiana, this volume).
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Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia Dr. James Liu invited me to his project on social representations of history in Japan, Taiwan, and China. We used a typical survey questionnaire, but I had a chance to see old Japanese people and ask about their experiences during World War II. I “just” listened to their stories, but it was, I hope, a good experience for them as it was for me. If you include natural disaster issues in the area of peace psychology, then I should tell you about my fieldwork in international disaster areas such as Taiwan (1999 Chi Chi Earthquake and its long-term revitalization processes) and Bam (2003 Iran Earthquake), as well as a disaster preparedness program in Kathmandu, Nepal. I am also now working in Sichuan, China with the survivors of the recent 2008 earthquake. - by Tomohide Atsumi, Center for the Study of Communication-Design, Osaka University, Japan
Asian history took on another form as the Cold War intensified. During this period, many parts of Asia bore the yoke of authoritarian dictatorships backed by military forces. The dominant story of peace and conflict in Asia during the Cold War is not a story of nuclear fear and disarmament as in the West, but rather a narrative of dictatorships that oppressed their local populations. A parallel discontinuity can be mirrored between Western and Asian contemporary peace discourses. As the West grows more interested in international terrorism and religiously overtoned conflict narratives, Asian peace psychologists are concerned about intrastate peace and conflict and hesitate to tag intergroup conflicts as religiously triggered. In the post–Cold War context, memories about large-scale dictatorial abuses needed to be dealt with by Asian societies. Further, the very processes of grappling with historical abuses can turn into a present-day community peace issue, an example of which is the survivors of the Tanjung Priok massacre under the Soeharto dictatorship (Muluk, this volume). Dictatorships muffled free speech. Without any open space to ventilate social contestations, centuries-old group conflicts dug into underground armed struggles. In the cradle of dictatorships, armed conflicts were born. The Moro National Liberation Front in the Philippines started in 1969 as Marcos’ stronghold intensified on the civilian populations. Likewise, intergroup animosity in Ambon found little public space to ventilate ethnic issues, because Soeharto’s politics of SARA (Suku, Agama, Ras, Antar-Golongan) suppressed public expressions of ethnicity and religion (Muluk & Malik, this volume). Internal strife likewise caused mass migrations to new territories, fueling issues related to social identity and place. For example, the contentious debate on whether Taiwan is a nation or is part of China emanates from a history of the Kuomintang’s withdrawal from mainland China as the communists grew victorious, and most Western nations backed the Republic of China (Taiwan) during the Cold War (Huang, this volume).
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And then dictatorships fell and went rather peacefully through different versions of People’s Power in the Philippines (1986), Taiwan (1987), South Korea (1987), Indonesia (1998), East Timor (2002), Thailand (1992), Nepal (2006), and Pakistan (2008). Relatively peaceful democratic transitions in Asia enriched the field of peace psychology by demonstrating that rigid political structures can be reconfigured through peaceful means (Estuar & Montiel, this volume). However, transitions to democracy unleashed centrifugal and chaotic social forces previously controlled by central authoritarian rule. For example, after Soeharto’s fall, some Indonesian pesantrans, freed to employ their own education policies by the central government, demanded that female students wear traditional Islamic garb and took on anti-pluralist interpretations of Islam (Pohl, this volume). Further, one of the triggering factors of the Ambon conflict was attributed to factions in post-Soeharto’s military and political elites who had an interest in destabilizing the country in order to return to power (Muluk & Malik, this volume).
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia Last December 1997, Ms. Rohaida Misuari (the wife of Nur Misuari, then Chair of the Moro National Liberation Front) came to GZO Peace Institute and asked for assistance for the Moro women after the signing of a peace agreement between the MNLF and the Philippine government. Ms. Misuari saw the need for the Moro women to assist in a redefinition of peace that was not based on winning a war. Together with a colleague, we designed and conducted a 3-day workshop on Culture of Peace. Twenty-nine Moro women from different areas of Mindanao attended the workshop. Many of them were widows while a few were former armed combatant themselves. We assisted in making the atmosphere and structures open to honest sharing of their individual experiences, in establishing memory and truths about their struggle, and clarifying their own thoughts and feelings about peace. At the end, they collectively identified the issues affecting them as women and as Moro, and some concrete ways to promote a culture of peace. It was in this workshop that I realized one thing: that understanding a culture of peace has a lot to do with understanding the individual and collective psychological wounds of the people involved in the conflict situation. - by Josephine Perez, Director, Peace Education and Capability-Building Program, Gaston Z. Ortigas (GZO) Peace Institute, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines Democratic shifts advanced peace efforts by allowing the rise of new national leaders with political abilities to address social divisions. Noor (Chapter 9, this volume) points out how Malaysia’s longtime party in power UMNO has been losing seats in recent elections, as opposition leaders mobilize more cross-ethnic unity among its party bases. In the Philippines, a peace agreement between the
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government and the Moro National Liberation Front was signed in September 1996, with much support from President Fidel Ramos (Batistiana, this volume). The end of martial law in Taiwan likewise saw its new President Lee Teng-hui and his successor Chen Shui-bian distinguish between the national identities of Taiwanese and Chinese (Huang, this volume), recognizing that aside from migrants from mainland China, Taiwan also had local populations from other ethnic groups. Culture and peace psychology. Asia is home to a kaleidoscope of ethnic groups that have been geographically entrenched in their own communities for centuries. The cultural mix in Asia is seldom produced by individual migrations of upwardly mobile or talented individuals seeking a better life, but by huge groups of peoples moving into or out of a place due to historical labor needs during the colonial period (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume) or smaller invasive conflicts by a more powerful group. In relation to peace psychology, I define culture as a group-owned repository of subjectivities. From this storage of shared subjectivities, members derive peacerelated narratives that work powerfully within the group, but are irrelevant among those who neither interact with nor belong to the group. For example, in the Ambon conflict, a once-popular mechanism called Pela-Gandong was used to establish communal peace. This indigenous mechanism was an oath of allegiance that bound together two villages, whether these villages were both Islamic or one was Christian while the other was Muslim. Local language also provides terms appropriate for peacemaking. At the height of peacemaking efforts in the recent Ambon conflict, conciliators found the term Baku Bae was acceptable to parties in the conflict who disdained the use of peace because peace meant surrender (Muluk & Malik, this volume). A foreign peace worker may need to recognize that because Asian culture is highly heterogeneous, one needs to saturate one’s self with the culture of the local place before moving toward social peace. From place-embedded culture, one can access the appropriate ways to pursue direct peace in particular localities. Although local cultures can be used for peacemaking (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume), one may likewise need to be vigilant because relatively soft Asian cultural orientations like harmony, shame avoidance, and face saving can be used by elite groups to subjugate populations (Lindner, this volume).
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia In relation to the Baku Bae peace movement in the Ambon conflict, I helped peace activists design a mediation procedure, and trained them how to procede. In the last 3 years, the Baku Bae Movement has been institutionalized as the Indonesian Peace Building Institute, and is led by Ichsan Malik who is also a psychologist. Ichsan and I have trained 3 batches of mediation workers since the institutionalization of this local peace movement. - by Hamdi Muluk, Department of Psychology, University of Indonesia, Indonesia
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It is also from the local culture that one can derive categories about social identities or a sense of belonging to one group and excluding (or fighting with) the other group in a society. For example, peace-related identities in Taiwan are related to one’s sense of being a Taiwanese, a Chinese, or a combination of these two nationalities (Huang, this volume). In Asia, religion tends to be part of public space rather than a private affair. Because religious narratives are part of the local culture, cultural scripts place religious leaders in positions of social influence where they can participate effectively in mediation and peaceful mobilizations. For example, Indonesia’s Kiai Fawa’id, an Islamic religious teacher, involved his pesantran students in rebuilding destroyed Christian churches after the October 1998 Muslim–Christian violence outbreak (Pohl, this volume). In Cambodia, the Buddhist monk Venerable Maha Ghosananda led Walks for Peace, while in predominantly Catholic Philippines, Cardinal Sin’s public call for People’s Power played a key role in the 1986 nonviolent revolution against the Marcos dictatorship. Religion likewise provides the basis for ethnic identities or social identities associated with particular groups in an intergroup conflict. Religion, however, can be a source of social conflict, contributing narratives that produce contention rather than cooperation across groups that hold different religions. However, words of caution are raised to avoid oversimplifying the causal link between religion and social conflict. At times, religion can be blamed for a conflict that is largely about unfair material and political power allocation between two religion-based groups (Khan; Khan & Sen; Muluk & Malik; Noor, Chapter 9; all in this volume).
Interconnectedness of Direct and Structural Peace Christie et al. (2008) emphasized the need for peace psychology to seek structural peace alongside social processes marked by direct peace. Galtung (1996) enunciated a similar call for simultaneous attendance to both structural and direct violence in his book Peace by Peaceful Means. These voices come in the midst of a discursive world about peace, where too often academic and social movements and state utterances tend to emphasize either too much of direct peace or too much of structural peace, instead of attending to both levels of peace in a balanced way. A peace psychology model identifies three states of a relationship – conflictual, violent, and postviolent (Christie et al., 2008). In each state, expressions of direct peace are identified as conflict management, violence de-escalation, and postviolence peacebuilding, respectively. Such expressions of direct peace are easily observable and have been popularly supported by state and international teams that hold social peace as part of their institutional agenda. However, these relationships are embedded in structural and cultural contexts that may be marked by social inequities. In order to produce a sustainable peace, positive or structural peace also needs to be pursued in tandem with direct peace interventions. The difficulty is that structural changes threaten the status quo and are often resisted. Hence, structural
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issues may be less popularly addressed by state and international institutions. One major contribution of the peace psychology model proposed by Christie et al. is that it allows for conceptual lenses, cultural narratives, methodological tools, and practical skills to position structural peace on equal footing with direct peace.
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia Since 2006, I have taught peace psychology at Wako University in Tokyo. The introductory course “Peace Psychology A” is a lecture on theories and practice of peace from psychological perspective. I use the reference “Psychology for creating peace” which I edited and has been published by Nakanishiya as a textbook. I also teach “Peace Psychology B” as a workshop where students do exercises on conflict analysis and conflict transformation, using as my theoretical background Johan Galtung’s Transcend Theory. Our special focus is reconciliation of Asian countries and Japan over World War II. I also teach a “Peace Psychology Seminar” as an independent research class for juniors and seniors. Our theme this year is prejudice reduction toward minorities in Japan. Through an extension program open for local people, I likewise provide conflict transformation two-day workshops twice a year. I am also engaged in TRANSCEND-Japan as a vice-president for conflict transformation training and research, and in the Japanese Association of Macro Counseling as Journal Editor for development of people’s well-being and social justice through research, clinical practice, and social action. - by Takehiko Ito, Department of Psychology and Education, Wako University, Tokyo, Japan
But in the real world of everyday social interactions and power plays, calls for peace stand on one leg and tend to topple. For example, peace zones established in Aceh (Iyer & Mitchell, 2007) managed to establish temporary direct peace and stop the intergroup fighting temporarily, but when power imbalances between the conflicting groups remained unaddressed, the fighting erupted again and the peace zones collapsed. Likewise, liberation groups that use armed struggles to give birth to structurally inspired ideals of social justice and freedom from foreign occupations sometimes end up devouring their own children in violent intra-organization struggles for power and perceived righteousness (Abinales, 1996). Social structures and peace psychology in Asia. Asian social life is marked by both structural and direct violence. Most of the episodes of direct violence are a result of intrastate and interethnic conflicts (Montiel, 2003). Structural violence in Asia can be gleaned not only from chasmic economic gaps between the rich and the poor (Zhou, this volume) but also from unequal distributions of political decisionmaking between ethnic/religious groups (Batistiana; Khan; Muluk & Malik; Noor, Chapter 9; all in this volume). Chapters in this volume demonstrate the seamless relationship between structural and direct peace.
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In the political arena, surges of direct violence are embedded in deep-seated resentments over power inequalities between the dominant and nondominant groups, like the inequalities between Muslims and non-Muslims in Malaysia (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume), between Christians and Muslims in Ambon (Muluk & Malik, this volume) and Mindanao (Batistiana, this volume), and between the Kuomintang from mainland China and inside-province Taiwanese (Huang, this volume). Economically, Asian countries are a mix of impoverished societies, growing economies, and well-to-do nations (Noor, Chapter 17, this volume). With a few exceptions like wealthy Japan and economically growing China, India, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, the rest of Asia is generally impoverished. And even in the newly bourgeoning economies, populations languish from stark wealth inequalities between the cosmopolitan rich and the rural poor. A psychology of peace in Asia considers poverty-related subjectivities within the individual and between groups. Issues like sentiments of the poor toward the rich (Zhou, this volume), and viceversa, can inform peace-related intervention programs, not only among the poor but also among the wealthy and between these unequal groups.
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia Over the last 5 years, I facilitated dialogues of parties in dispute, the most recent of which was between two networks of agrarian reform advocates. I have also facilitated multi-stakeholder conferences on themes related to land reform and peace building. I also trained community mediators, such as those of the Barangay (Village) Peace Committee, Peace Councils formed by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Agrarian Reform, Mindanao Women’s Commission, and the Mediators Network for Sustainable Peace (MedNet). - by Brenda Batistiana, Founding Member of MedNet, Doctoral student, Department of Psychology, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
Interfacing direct and structural peace. Some examples in this volume demonstrate how an eye for interaction patterns across analytical layers allows for transforming both direct and structural peace without leaving one or the other leg behind. I cite some examples below. Further, one may note that the peace psychology skills for direct peace can be largely located in the smaller human layers like the person and the group, whereas the peace psychology skills for navigating through and restructuring social configurations lie predominantly in larger layers like culture, society, the state, and even global relations. Khisbiyah’s (this volume) content analysis of magazines associated with politically positioned Islamic streams sees both direct and structural peace. Her findings indicate that discourses across a spectrum of Islamic groups contain different
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understandings of direct peace, for example, constructions about the enemy, and of group orientations toward direct violence. The groups also hold different discursive positions about structural issues on interfaith relations and social justice. Other studies demonstrate how direct and structural peace intertwine across time, with phenomena on one level directly relating to phenomena on the other level. Structural peace may precede direct peace issues. For example, after Philippine peace talks slightly restructured Muslim–Christian intergroup configurations, former women combatants went to members of the Moro National Liberation Front to explain the contentious agreements because if men did the explaining, disruptive organizational arguments may have arisen (Batistiana, this volume). More frequently, however, issues of direct peace arise first and occupy center stage as a common goal shared by antagonistic groups, and then structural and social justice issues are raised and prioritized during the process of moving toward the goal. For example, Atsumi and Suwa (this volume) propose that before genuine forgiveness and apology take place between Japan and China, the harmful subjugation of China by Japan during World War II may need to be recognized in Japanese narratives of history. A popular relation between structural and direct peace can be found in directpeace endeavors that attend to structural issues. Such structural issues can be raised as process integral. During negotiations for direct peace, the peacemaking process may be characterized by intergroup equality between negotiating parties, as for example in Kashmir (Khan, this volume) and Ambon (Muluk & Malik, this volume). In other situations, structural solutions arise as outcomes of efforts to prevent future episodes of direct violence, as in Malaysia (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume).
Studying Subjectivities in Macro-human Phenomena Direct violence and peace stand on familiar territory for psychologists, because unlike structural violence and peace, the former can be associated with a specific subject, target, intent, and interpersonal behavior (Berkowitz, 1993; Galtung, 1975). But can psychology remain within its domain of human subjectivities and likewise attend to structural violence and peace without morphing into a discipline about ideas (philosophy), social acts or class relations (sociology), the state (political science), or cultural dynamics (anthropology)? Yes, it can, and it is in the domain of subjectivities where peace psychology contributes to a multidisciplinary peace discourse. For example, peace psychology looks into subjective aspects of philosophical discourse (Lindner, this volume) and ventures into disciplinary fields that lend wider lenses to understand subjectivity in class relations (Zhou, this volume), international state relations (Huang, this volume), and cultural phenomena (Noor, Chapter 9, this volume). How can peace psychology study macro-subjectivities? Japanese social psychologists Atsumi and Suwa (this volume) propose a 2 × 2 framework for doing
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research about peace-related subjectivities. They first classify sciences into nomothetic and narrative sciences. Nomothetic science finds universal laws by testing hypotheses by the criterion of true or false. Narrative science, in contrast, focuses on characters, plots, the flow of a narrative, and its interpretation by the criterion of similar or non-similar. Sciences can also be categorized as epistemic and design sciences. Epistemic science is interested in the nature of a phenomenon (“What is it about?”), while design science is goal oriented (“What do you want to do?”) and looks at patterns inside and around the phenomenon of interest. In regard to the nomothetic–epistemic science approach, peace psychology can rigorously apply well-developed research methods in studying peace subjectivities. One general strategy would be to collect relevant data by accessing individual minds through experimental or survey research. Here, the endogenous variables may be psychological beliefs and emotions about structural issues such as justice (Ohbuchi & Takada, this volume), feelings toward the rich (Zhou, this volume), or interethnic inequality (Huang, this volume). Data analysis takes the track of comparative or multivariate statistics using as predictors demographic variables and other psychological properties of individual research participants. One may also vary the participants’ structural position and then test whether structural position acts as a moderator variable by investigating interaction effects between a person’s group and other peace-related subjectivities. For example, one study in Malaysia and the Philippines showed how the label of freedom fighter and terrorist produced no main effects on trait attributions (about the politically violent character in a vignette), but held significant interaction effects. Findings showed that members of nondominant groups described a freedom fighter more positively than a terrorist, while participants from dominant groups attributed more positive traits to a terrorist than a freedom fighter (Montiel & Shah, 2008). The second approach, a narrative–design peace psychology, may develop along a trajectory with three dimensions. This trajectory sees peace-related subjectivities as beyond individual, context saturated, and fundamentally relational, and dynamic rather than static. Atsumi and Suwa claim that conventional social psychology has developed in the same category of doing-science as physics and chemistry, as a nomothetic–epistemic science. But if we think in terms of peace psychology science, we may look at another part of the matrix as well. Doing narrative–design science in peace psychology (Atsumi & Suwa) allows for thick descriptions about peace processes, searches for contextualized patterns, and is goal defined because it is positioned on the side of peace. Peace subjectivities in Asia as also beyond individual For beyond-individual psychological phenomenon, one does not look inside the mind of individuals, as survey questions do, but observes what goes on between at least two people. This allows a wider array of data types that can be collected in a discipline that needs to sensitize itself to subjectivities of macro-units. This understanding of psychology raises the possibility of having as subjects (not only as objects) larger subjective phenomena among collectives like ethnic groups, the state, and also non-state collective actors like prodemocracy movements.
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Clearly, data outside the minds of individuals would exist, at the least, between two people. Subjectivities can be located within collective units, or units containing a plurality of individuals, where the subjective nature of the collective unit is more than the sum of its parts. In understanding peace psychology in Asia, one needs to utilize conceptual tools about collective orientations, emotions, and cognitions.
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia Peacemaking and peacebuilding are central to my work both as a researcher and as a social activist. Greatly disturbed by the communal riots in 2002 in Gujarat, India, when state intervention and political muscle were deployed for the first time in communal rioting, I initiated my present research. The research is in collaboration with Prof. Wolfgang Wagner, University of Linz, Austria. It focuses on ethnic conflict, the subjugating of minorities, and the role of women in non violence. The research uses the Gandhian philosophy as an overall framework. I have since published co-authored research in various international and national journals and this has received significant positive feedback. Since 2002 I have divided my time almost equally as a researcher and social activist. As an academic I have tried to understand the nature of fundamentalist tendencies, secularism, myths and symbols which engender conflict that often finds violent resolution. As an activist I have tried to contribute to peacebuilding and augmenting of social capital through my role in various non government organizations related to civil society and empowerment of women. - by Ragini Sen, Peace Mumbai, India
Khisbiyah (this volume) offers an example of three distinct collective orientations about peace and social justice within the Indonesian Islamic community: conservative-exclusionists, moderates, and progressive-inclusionists. Another example of a collective orientation has to do with the pesantran’s (Islamic schools) institutional role in building peaceful coexistence and a pluralistic society in Indonesia (Pohl, this volume). Collective emotions, on the other hand, can be conceptualized as a community feeling. For instance, in explaining the anatomy of violence in Kashmir, Khan (this volume) asserts that political violence may be unrelated to individual complaints but linked directly to the feelings and grievances of an entire community and how this group has been negatively treated by more powerful groups. Not surprisingly, because violence is collectively inflicted, emotions toward such violence and peace are likewise communal. A peace psychology in Asia recognizes that peace is collectively constructed, and hence meanings of peace evolve external to an individual but internal to a social group. Here I borrow from the lens of social construction. A social constructionist lens posits that meaning is created from interactions and communications
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across people, rather than from within individuals (Coyle, 2007; Schwandt, 1994). Understanding psychological aspects of peace may require looking at social psychological processes of how groups create their subjective realities on the collective level and how macro-subjectivities interface with individual psychological phenomena. Empirical evidence about subjectivities outside individual minds can be based on data that stores communication between two or more human entities. This kind of communication can be characterized by symbols and expressed in symbolic interactions. Peace psychology in Asia can benefit from the contributions of social constructivist and symbolic lenses. I now discuss the more specific constructivist-symbolic concepts of cultural carriers (Moghaddam, 2008) and social representations of history (Liu & Sibley, this volume) because these concepts are particularly useful in an Asian region that contains a high level of cultural heterogeneity and a heavy historical past. Moghaddam (2008) elucidates that the macro–micro link can be explained by cultural carriers. These are symbolical containers of sociopolitical narratives that convey a rich array of values, norms, rules, and ways of thinking. The macro–micro link is sustained because one’s personal identity and cognitive configurations are inextricably linked with particular social narratives contained in the cultural carrier (Moghaddam, 2008). Khan and Sen’s chapter in this volume illustrates the potency of a cultural carrier, the Babri Masjid monument in India, which is symbolically associated with social narratives that have the power to ignite widespread violence and consolidate Hindu nationalist ideology. Cultural carriers may help explain the continued collective hostilities, unforgiveness, and stereotyping that thrive even after official peace agreements establish peace at the formal level. One may just visit the village monuments, or war museums, or do a checklist of the kind of local holidays that a town celebrates to get a sense of cultural carriers that sustain narratives of conflict, despite political declarations of intergroup peace. A conceptual tool that is useful for the study of psychological properties of larger analytical units beyond the individual is the social representation of history. Social representations, as different from mental representations, are subjectivities located among a plurality of people (Moscovici, 1988). Because Asia’s peace and conflict configuration is steeped in historical remembrances, the field of social representations of history lends itself to the study of how a people’s subjective history activates itself in the pursuit of social peace in Asia, in today’s public arena. For example, one can ask how ethnic and national groups construct their collective history about social conflict. Liu and Sibley (this volume) propose using social representations of history to study collective cognitions related to social violence and peace. Asserting the importance of history on contemporary dynamics of peace and conflict, they map out both theoretical and methodological tools for investigating subjective representations of history among people. History is conceptualized as a symbolic terrain of a collection of people, on which they interact with each other and formulate their social identities. To investigate social representations of history, one would study history discourses and institutional practices, using a
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mix of qualitative and quantitative strategies. One would also utilize as subjective data historical accounts and phenomena from other more macro-disciplines such as sociology, history, and political science (Khan & Sen, this volume). Social representations of history can be used to study how Japanese (fail to) formulate stories about the Nanjing Massacre in China during World War II (Atsumi & Suwa, this volume) and how Hindutva ideology (meaning of Hinduism) interfaces with social violence and peace in India (Khan & Sen, this volume). Liu and Sibley’s work is particularly useful for a psychology of peace evolving in a region that carries with it powerful collective remembrances (i.e., shared, not individualized) of colonial oppressions, a World War II, Cold War dictatorial regimes, and interethnic eruptions across centuries. Liu and Sibley provide an overarching frame for a psychological take on history’s interface with peace. They propose both theory and methods for treating history as symbolically present in the subjective and collective everyday lives of peoples. Peace psychology in Asia as context saturated and time embedded. Context saturation implies that the nature of subjectivities about peace in Asia is relational and defined by what is going on around the individual/collective actor at the moment the psychological phenomenon occurs. For example, the psychological experience of a person is defined by one’s relation to the collective, the state, and perhaps even the global conditions at a particular moment. Hence, this brings to the forefront the need to theorize about interaction patterns rather than main effects across the different layers of individual/collective actors. Psychological theorizing about peace and conflict in Asia may need to illuminate questions about subjective conditions on varying layers of analyses, as each layer interacts with the other layers in a contextsaturated manner. Muluk’s paper (this volume) on Collective Memory for Sale reveals the complexity of interaction effects as contrasted with main effects. He examines how a group of torture victims during the Soeharto regime constructed their remembrances of their past sufferings in accordance with their own understandings of the configuration of post-dictatorship political interests, the material rewards offered by some military officers, and their own economic conditions at the time of their dialogue with the military officers. If one studied victim memory only as a main effect, one would have an overly simplified picture of the nature of the memory of torture among these community members. Peace psychology in Asia sees a subjectivity that is dynamic. Psychological phenomenon is time embedded. Psychological conditions change from moment to moment – the data one collected yesterday may be far from the truth today. This is particularly true in volatile societies undergoing political and economic transitions in a rapidly unfolding pace. Hence, narrative sequence (Batistiana; Khan & Sen; Muluk & Malik; this volume) and the timing of data collection should be factored into presentations and explanations of one’s results. Further, the nature of long-term or telescopic time may likewise interface with inclinations toward conflictual and peace-oriented subjectivities. Heavier attachments to the past, to histories of oppressions and exploitations, may be associated with increasing tendencies to engage in antagonistic posturing, while orientations
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toward a future (Huang, this volume) marked by collective wellbeing may be associated with peace agendas. The utilization of time frames may likewise be balanced to recognize both a wounded collective past and a promising collective future. Too much emphasis on one or the other time frame may create a one-legged unstable peace agenda. Individual-based psychology tends to see context as static demographic variables. Context variables are usually treated as independent or predictor variables, and in statistics, variation is located primarily in the predicted, not the predictor. Further, except for resource-heavy longitudinal studies, data collection is carried out at single time points, and then multivariates derive causal claims from correlational statistics. In beyond-individual psychology, one can detect situational patterns as dynamically changing across time coordinates. And because subjectivities of larger analytical units can be observed and pattern described, one can also treat context as the dependent variable and investigate how human agency causes context change (Estuar & Montiel, this volume). Studying conversations within and among groups can detect subjective patterns that are relational and dynamic (Drew, 1995). One conceptual tool that lends itself to the study of peace-and-conflict conversations in public space is positioning theory. In its original form, positioning theory was about two-person conversations. The theory described how the words used psychologically produced rights and privileges among the actors involved and positioned them to each other in the course of a conversation (van Lagenhove & Harre, 1999). Positioning theory has evolved to become a useful tool in large-scale peace-and-conflict conversations, as demonstrated in a series of chapters on intergroup positioning in a recent volume on Global Conflict Resolution through Positioning Analysis (Moghaddam, Harre, & Lee, 2008).
Applications of Peace Psychology in Asia I have been long interested in the topic of “religion and peace”, or to be more precise, in “religion for peace” since I was a student activist at Gadjah Mada University in the early 80’s. I founded and directed the Center for Cultural Studies and Social Change at Muhammadiyah University of Surakarta where I have worked since 1995. Through this Center, I channel my passions to help build peace using psychological knowledge and skills for Indonesian multicultural communities, including internally diverse Muslim groups of Indonesia. I design a number of action research and communitybased programs to tackle societal problems emanating from mismanagement of sectarian conflicts. I have also been recruited as consultant by national and international agencies to work with conflict and peace. Some of these programs are: psychosocial programming for conflict-torn areas in Indonesia such as Aceh and Ambon, health as a bridge to peace, trauma healing for conflict victims in Aceh and Ambon, post-disaster education for tsunami children in Aceh, Muslim intra-faith dialogue, promoting respect for difference and
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diversity among Muslim leaders for Indonesian plural societies, youth peace camp, workshops and training for young leaders on managing diversity and conflict resolution, teaching tolerance for primary school students, and peace education for secondary schools. - by Yayah Khisbiyah, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia
In order to understand peace psychology in Asia, one may ask: What are the subjective aspects of conversations that arise in the process of peacebuilding and peacemaking among individuals and groups? In studying back-and-forth conversations between groups, the utterer need not be a single person. On the assumption that a continuous conversation arises in public political space, one can study utterances of collectives using in-depth interviews (Batistiana, this volume), results of their focused group discussions (Muluk & Malik, this volume), or magazines associated with particular political streams (Khisbiyah, this volume).
Concluding Remarks: Institutionalizing Peace Psychology in Asian Academic Settings Peace psychology in Asia has grown significantly over the past decade. In fact, the region has already hosted two sets of the International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, first in Ateneo de Manila in 2001 and then in Indonesia’s Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta and Universitas Gadjah Mada in 2007. The endurance of a geohistorically sensitive peace psychology may be ensured as the discipline becomes institutionalized as a regular part of academic programs in the region. Progress has been made along this track, in terms of establishing graduate programs in peace psychology and teaching courses on peace psychology in undergraduate and graduate programs. The University of Indonesia will offer an MA in Peace Psychology by 2009. At the International Islamic University Malaysia, plans are underway to establish an MA program in Peace and Conflict Studies that will include a two-course sequence in Peace Psychology and a related practicum. Likewise, the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, is piloting a peace psychology course as part of a curriculum that will have a strong bend toward the Asian region and other parts of the world as well. A number of other universities do not offer a masters program in the field but offer peace psychology as a course at the undergraduate or graduate levels. These academic institutions are the Ateneo de Manila University, Wako University in Japan, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta in Solo, Indonesia. In 2008, Ateneo de Manila offered a course in peace psychology as part of a dual campus MA program in Peace Studies of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. The Ateneo course had 28 peace-practitioner students from Asian countries like Vietnam,
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China, Japan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia, South Korea, and Kyrgyzstan. At the time of this writing, courses in peace psychology are being developed at the University of the Punjab in Pakistan and elsewhere in Asia. Moreover, ongoing efforts are being made to conduct research and develop the literature in the field, as exemplified by the current volume. This volume provides evidence that peace psychology can indeed be appropriate in a variety of Asian settings, among wealthy and poor societies, and in stable and unstable political conditions. Because Liu and Sibley’s chapter provides a conceptual and methodological frame for other chapters that tackle social representations, we present their overarching essay as part of the Introduction section. We then cluster the chapters in this volume according to regional proximity. From South Asia, discussions cover interethnic identities in Muslim–Hindu conflicts in India and the psychopolitics in Kashmir. The East Asian section contains papers about forgiveness, collective remembering, sentiments toward the rich, and national identity. Chapters on Southeast Asia are concerned with cultural dimensions of interethnic peacebuilding, community peace processes, remembering dictatorial atrocities, technology and People’s Power, women as peacebuilders, Islamic discourses, and the role of pesantran religious schools in peacemaking. Lindner’s chapter demonstrates an alternative way of understanding peace psychology in Asia, through a philosophical and cultural lens. Finally, the volume ends as Noor explores the future of peace psychology in Asia. Peace psychology is a relatively new discipline. Its flagship journal, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, started in 1995. As the field spreads beyond the North Atlantic, the theoretical, methodological, and pedagogic tools of the discipline may need to flex, in order to shed light on human subjectivities in other settings as well. Further, more region-based academic programs in peace psychology will aid the growth of this discipline so that the torch may be passed to the next generation, illuminating the shadows of a war-torn family called the human race. Acknowledgments I thank Ateneo de Manila University for supporting this research with an internal grant from the University Research Council in 2008. I am also grateful to Fathali Moghaddam who provided insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
References Abinales, P. (1996). When the revolution devours its children before victory: Operasyong kampanyang ahos and the tragedy of Mindanao communism. In P. Abinales (Ed.), The revolution falters: The left in Philippine politics after 1986 (pp. 154–179). Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program. Berkowitz, L. (1993). Aggression: Its causes, consequences and control. San Francisco: McGraw Hill. Christie, D. J., Tint, B. S., Wagner, R. V., & Winter, D. D. (2008). Peace psychology for a peaceful world. American Psychologist, 63, 540–552. Coyle, A. (2007). Discourse analysis. In E. Lyons & A. Coyle (Eds.), Analyzing qualitative data in psychology (pp. 98–116). London: Sage. Drew, P. (1995). Conversation analysis. In J. Smith, R. Harre, & L. Van Langenhove (Eds.) Rethinking methods in psychology (pp. 64–79). London: Sage.
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Galtung, J. (1975). Violence, peace, and peace research. In J. Galtung (Ed.), Essays in peace research: Vol. I. Peace: Research, education, action (pp. 109–134). Copenhagen: Christian Ejlers. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means. London: Sage. Iyer, P., & Mitchell, C. (2007). The collapse of peace zones in Aceh. In L. Hancock & C. Mitchell (Eds.), Zones of peace (pp. 137–165). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian. Moghaddam, F. (2008). The psychological citizen and the two concepts of social contract: A preliminary analysis. Political Psychology, 29, 881–901. Moghaddam, F. M., Harre, R., & Lee, N. (Eds.). (2008). Global conflict resolution through positioning analysis (pp. 261–282). NY: Springer. Montiel, C. (2003). Peace psychology in Asia. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9, 195–218. Montiel, C., & Christie, D. (2008). Conceptual frame for a psychology of nonviolent democratic transitions: Positioning across analytical layers. In F. M. Moghaddam, R. Harre, & N. Lee (Eds.), Global conflict resolution through positioning analysis (pp. 261–282). NY: Springer. Montiel, C., & Shah, A. (2008). Effects of political framing and perceiver’s dominant-group position on trait attributions of a terrorist/freedom-fighter. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 27, 266–273. Moscovici, S. (1988). Notes towards a description of social representations. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18, 211–250. Schwandt, T. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 119–137). London: Sage. van Lagenhove, L., & Harre, R. (1999). Positioning theory. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
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Culture, Social Representations, and Peacemaking: A Symbolic Theory of History and Identity James H. Liu and Chris G. Sibley
Peace psychology has emerged like a phoenix from the ashes of the Cold War to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the psychology of peace and conflict that draws more strongly from macro-level and institutional factors than from individuallevel cognitive-motivational factors characteristic of mainstream intergroup theory in psychology. A recent review by Christie (2006) highlighted three major themes for peace psychology in the post–Cold War environment: “(1) a greater sensitivity to geohistorical context, (2) a more differentiated perspective on the meanings and types of violence and peace, and (3) a systems view of the nature of violence and peace” (p. 3). These themes bear major structural similarities to social psychological movements in Asia privileging culturally appropriate social actions (Atsumi, 2007; Liu & Ng, 2007) and those in Europe articulating a representational form of social psychology (Moscovici, 1988). Reflecting its origins in the United States, however, current approaches to peace psychology have little compelling theory about how culture and its representational systems influence war and peace. The purpose of this chapter is to present a symbolic representational approach to culture and conflict resolution developed in Asia and the Pacific that synthesizes European theories of social identity (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and social representations (Moscovici, 1988).
Symbolic Representations of Culture Asian social psychology has come of age out of a dialogue between North American psychologists interested in testing the universality of their theories and East Asian psychologists interested in delimiting boundary conditions for Western theories and articulating indigenous systems of psychology (Hofstede, 2007; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Yang, 2000). Accordingly, Asian social psychology has come to be identified with a cultural approach to psychology (Leung, 2007; Liu & Ng, 2007), and cross-cultural psychology has been strongly influenced by North American constructs like attitudes, values, norms, and stereotypes. Currently, major cross-cultural theorists operationally define culture as national-level means along global dimensions of variation in values (Schwartz, 1992), orientations (Hofstede, 2001), and C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_2, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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social axioms (Leung & Bond, 2004) or as implicit theories of behavior based on civilizational scripts (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martinez, 2000; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). These definitions identify culture with the individual and the nation or civilization without the critical intervening layer of the institutions of culture that mediate between individuals and the state. European theories of societal psychology are useful to bridge the gap between the individual and culture: social representations theory (Moscovici, 1961/2006) in particular specifies a mediating role for institutions and the modes of communication and the systems of knowledge and belief that they foster. While there is little consensus around how either social representations (Wagner & Hayes, 2005) or culture (Triandis, 1995) should be defined, in the symbolic approach taken here, social representations are defined as a shared system of knowledge and belief that facilitates communication about social objects, and culture is conceptualized as a meta-system of social representations mediated by language, symbols, and their institutional carriers. But at this level of abstraction, little is added to the definition of culture provided by Geertz (1973) as a system of symbolically communicated meaning by calling it a “meta-system of social representations.” There is need for definitions of more specific aspects of culture that can be operationalized as social representations using the analytical and quantitative techniques typical of social psychology that still retain the richness and multiplicity of the concept.
History as an Essential Ingredient in the “Imagined Community” of Nationhood Peoples that aspire to self-governance, like ethnic and national groups, seek to establish norms, traditions, and institutions that maintain temporal continuity between past, present, and future (Liu & Hilton, 2005; Hilton & Liu, 2008). History confers immortality to events and people by weaving them into stories Malinowski (1926) calls “narratives of origin.” These historical narratives allow a society to maintain continuity in the midst of change, as core symbols and the institutions and discourses associated with them are used to cope with difficult new situations (Wagner, Kronberger, & Seifert, 2002). These symbolic representations tend to retain their core properties across time and space while changing in their peripheral aspects (Abric, 1993). Social representations of history are particularly important for political culture, as a society renews its social contract with members or encounters new situations that require it to make use of and adjust the wisdom of the past in the light of challenges from the present and future. “A group’s representation of its history is constitutional: it can serve the function of a foundational myth or ‘charter’ for a society, defining rights and obligations for a group and legitimizing its social and political arrangements . . . A group’s representation of its history will thus condition its sense of what it was, what it is, and what it can be . . ..” (Liu & Hilton, 2005, p. 538). It does so in the form of canonical narratives (Liu and László, 2007), museum displays and commemorations (Olick & Robbins, 1998), collective memories of heroes
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and martyrs (Schwartz, 1997), maps and vernaculars (Anderson, 1983), as well as the more standard psychological repertoires of attitudes, values, beliefs, and discourses. From a psychological viewpoint, Liu and László (2007) have described how narratives grasp together or configure (Wertsch, 2002) the raw materials of history in a way that responds to the challenges of the day. Rather than being static, historical representations are conceptualized as a “symbolic reserve” mobilized by cultural elites who use them to justify their political agendas (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). In many cases, especially with contemporary nation states, it is political agendas that drive cultural memories rather than vice versa (Liu & Atsumi, 2008). Sociologist Zerubavel (1996) shows how Masada evolved from a peripheral and little-known account of Jewish zealots’ futile resistance to the Romans into a central historical account of the meaning of Never Again after Jewish people formed the state of Israel after the Holocaust. Social psychology’s contribution to a symbolic conceptualization of culture is to provide a quantitative, verifiable approach to complement the more qualitative and archival approach taken by sociologists. Unlike the standard theoretical repertoires of social psychology, social representations of national history are in large part unique to a culture and its people. This is particularly relevant for peace psychology in Asia, because as Montiel (2003) notes, 107 of the 131 conflicts in this region in the last 30 years were internal to a state. But while each people have their own experiences and collective remembrances of moving through time, they share connections to earth-shaking events of world and regional history. The collisions and collusions between local and international events through time are grist for the mill of a symbolic theory of history and identity applied to conflict and peacemaking between states as well as culture-specific phenomena within states.
Four Steps to Operationalizing Social Representations of History in National Cultures of Conflict and Peacemaking Social representations theorists (SRT) have an eclectic approach to research methods because “They have been encouraged by the founder of the SRT who has never desired to claim himself as an owner of his own theory with the power to legitimize or de-legitimize the work of researchers who inspired him” (p. 185, de Rosa, 2006). In this spirit of sharing, we contribute our summary of a decade of work in New Zealand operationalizing its national political culture, drawing lessons from this work for peace psychology in Asia as represented by selected chapters in this volume. These steps can be taken in sequence or separately. The actual time involved in developing this sequence has spanned a decade.
Step One: Ascertain the Symbolic Landscape of History In cross-cultural psychology, there is a strong tradition of resisting imposed etics, that is, universal theories or measures imported from another culture and
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automatically assumed to apply to the local culture (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 2002). Therefore, the first step in operationalizing social representations of history for a given people is to ask a pair of open-ended questions: “What are the most important [people/events] in the history of [your people or your place]?”1 The 10 most frequently nominated people and events are then coded into categories for each relevant demographic group (e.g., major ethnic groups for national histories, nationalities for world history, men and women, adults and university students, etc.). From this, a narrative structure can be inferred, as seen in the example of New Zealand from Liu, Wilson, McClure, and Higgins (1999). In New Zealand, the two historically most important ethnic groups are Maori, Polynesians who first settled in the islands about 800 years ago, and Pakeha or New Zealand Europeans who began arriving 200 years ago and wrested control of the land and colonized Maori subsequently. The four events consensually nominated by Pakeha and Maori in both adult and student populations according to Liu et al. (1999) were all events that can be “grasped” or configured in a bicultural narrative of New Zealand national identity as a partnership between Maori and Pakeha peoples: the arrival of Maori, the arrival of New Zealand Europeans, the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi promising a covenant between them, and then the betrayal of the promise of the treaty in the Land Wars that followed (where control was wrested from Maori and a colonial structure put in place). The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori chieftains and the British Crown was consensually regarded as the most important and foundational event of New Zealand history. Liu et al. (1999) showed that this bicultural configuration of history was accompanied by a reversal of the typical finding of in-group favoritism on the part of the dominant group: for the most important event in New Zealand history, both Maori and Pakeha thought that Maori, the subordinate, colonized, low-power group had honored the Treaty of Waitangi better than the dominant group. Contrast this to the United States, for example, where, if Native Americans are accorded any position in the national historical narrative, it is primarily as antagonists, occasionally as helpers of the dominant cultural group of European colonists, but not as “partners.” Furthermore, in New Zealand, beliefs about how well the treaty had been honored predicted attitudes toward current political events involving the two groups, like paying compensation for colonial land alienation from Maori or teaching Maori language in schools. Similar findings about the relevance of historical perceptions to presentday political attitudes and identifications have been found in Asia from Malaysia and Singapore (Liu, Lawrence, Ward, & Abraham, 2002), Taiwan (Huang, Liu, & Chang, 2004, see also Huang, this volume), and the Philippines (Liu & GastardoConaco, under review). Liu (2005) argued that the Treaty of Waitangi is a powerful historical symbol that anchors a bicultural narrative of New Zealand not just in attitudes and talk (Liu & Sibley, 2006), but in societal institutions and commemorations: two gigantic replicas
1 Depending on the complexity of the object of study, this may involve asking about both the nation and sub-regions or peoples in the case of multi-ethnic or federal states.
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of the treaty (in Maori and English) tower over visitors to the national museum, and the signing of the treaty is commemorated annually as a national holiday. This bicultural configuration of history produces massive effects on national identity, even as measured in milliseconds using a reaction-time paradigm from social cognition. Sibley and Liu (2007) showed that at the implicit level, both Maori and Pakeha reacted equally quickly to the pairing of symbols of New Zealand national identity (e.g., the flag, a map of the islands, the silver fern, a kiwi bird) with brown (Maori) or white (Pakeha) faces and much faster than they reacted to the same symbols paired with New Zealand Chinese faces. Indeed, in subsequent studies using both undergraduate students and random samples drawn from the general population, Sibley and colleagues have shown that Pakeha consistently associate both members of their in-group and Maori equally in representations of nationhood, whereas Maori tend to demonstrate an in-group bias in which they associate faces of Maori more strongly with representations of what it means to be a New Zealander (Sibley, Liu, & Khan, 2008; Sibley, Robertson, & Liu, 2008). This pattern deviates substantially from the pattern found in the United States, where Whites explicitly claim that all ethnic groups are equally American, but at the implicit level demonstrate a strong and consistent in-group bias (or American = White effect) where they associate White faces more closely to American national symbols than those of other ethnic groups (Devos & Banaji, 2005). These findings illustrate empirically the geohistory of conflict and peace rooted to the local culture of New Zealand, provide alternative definitions of peace (where indigenous claims to compensation and recognition are configured as part of the national narrative), and articulate a culture-specific system of inter-ethnic relations unique to a nation that is a fusion between European and Polynesian peoples and their cultures.
Step Two: Describe Discursive Repertoires in Dialogue with Historical Symbols The colonization of New Zealand provides the contours of both the problems and solutions endemic to many of its present-day social dilemmas, just as AfricanAmerican president Barack Obama has referred to the United States’ history of slavery as its “original sin.” If New Zealand were truly as egalitarian as New Zealanders appear to implicitly and explicitly believe, then how is it that Maori form 16% of the total population but 50% of the prison population, earn 16% less income, and have a life expectancy 8 years lower than other New Zealanders (The Social Report, 2005)? A major part of the answer lies in structures of inequality created in the colonial era (King, 2004; Walker, 1990) whose legacy not only influences the distribution of wealth and power today, but has also contributed to the formation of discursive repertoires that legitimize, maintain, and normalize these inequalities (McCreanor, 2005; Wetherell & Potter, 1992).
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Social representations theorists (de Rosa, 2006) have argued that representations are inextricably woven in a dialogical relationship with communication patterns, but cannot be reduced to discursive repertoires as radical discourse analysis suggests. While representations exist in talk, they also exist as collective memories, societal values and beliefs, photographic images, commemorations, and exhibitions – in all these media, it is communication that is central to the relationship between thought, feeling, and action. Kirkwood, Liu, and Weatherall’s (2005) analysis of submissions concerning legislation nationalizing the land between the high and low tides (and therefore precluding Maori treaty claims for customary ownership) demonstrated that both writers for and against the legislation used symbols like the treaty and liberal democratic discourses of meritocracy and equality of opportunity in ways that countered one another’s arguments and produced alternative forms of identity. This submission cited by Kirkwood et al. (2005) in favor of nationalizing the land employs several discursive tactics to marginalize Maori claims against this and normalize majority ethnic identity as national identity: Dear Helen, I am writing to you as a concerned kiwi, with regard to recent events attempted maori ownership of our sea bed and coastline of our country. Are we to dispell the myth to the world that we as a nation celebrate our multi-cultrual belief that segrgation is alive and well in New Zealand. It appears there are too many that prefer to hold onto the past, rather than as a nation move forward together. I am tired of paying for my forefathers mistakes. 20 years on my own children are being subjected, to something that happend back in 1840. We are reminded periodicallythat maori own this land; Yet on the rugby field / netball court we are a proud nation all cultures come together, but as soon as the land is mentioned we would sooner not discuss it, for with this subject comes so much anger, segrgation, huge set backs, I want to feel safe in the knowledge that the beaches belong to all who visit there, this is getting ridiculous. When will it all end? I cannot see it, why can’t people just get along. Maori are not doing themselves any justice by being greedy.2
The use of “concerned kiwi” claims a super-ordinate national identity for the writer and attempts to position Maori claims for the seabed and foreshore as “greedy” desires for preferential treatment by a special-interest group that prefers to “hold on to the past, rather than as a nation move forward together.” By contrast the following submission against nationalization takes an ethnic identity for the writer (“pakeha New Zealander”) and positions Maori claims for the land between the high and low tides as based on both “The principle of respect for property rights” and “The principle of acceptability to Maori” – on both liberal democracy and the treaty. Moreover, a direct connection is made between past, present, and future in the last sentence rather than positioning the past as irrelevant as in the previous submission. I wish to make a submission on the Government’s proposals [. . .]. I do so as a thirdgeneration pakeha New Zealander who has a passionate commitment to the building of a strong and harmonious national society, based on the recognition and protection of the rights and interests of all New Zealanders, including the special rights and interests of Maori as the tangata whenua [. . .] There are also two other, over-arching principles that must be 2 Misspellings
contained in the original are retained in the cited transcription.
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applied if any solution involving legislation is to have any prospect of being accepted and honoured. They are: The principle of respect for property rights: the Government must respect the property rights of all New Zealanders, without discrimination. The principle of acceptability to Maori: Principle ought not to enact legislation affecting things of particular importance to Maori unless its termsare generally acceptable to Maori. [. . .] If they are not observed, Maori are likely to claim, in the New Zealand courts and internationally, that they have been deprived of their property in an arbitrary and discriminatory fashion. Today’s grievances are likely to become tomorrow’s new claims
A substantial body of qualitative research from New Zealand (see McCreanor, 2005) has detailed the discursive repertoires recounted by press, politicians, and ordinary citizens alike to marginalize indigenous peoples’ claims of redress for colonial injustices and to maintain the status quo of ethnic inequality in reality side by side with equality in principle. Sibley and Liu (2004) used factor analysis to identify a simultaneous configuration of attitudes of support for biculturalism in principle or symbolic biculturalism side by side with inequality in fact or opposition to resource-based biculturalism (compensation for past injustices). Biculturalism in principle reflects support for accepting symbols of Maori culture as symbols of New Zealand culture: like accepting a Maori war dance as a national dance to represent the nation at sporting events, singing the national anthem in Maori language, wearing Maori bone carvings overseas, or using Maori arts to represent New Zealand. Opposition to resource-based biculturalism refers to resistance to attempts to provide material redress for historical and current injustices: they include attempts to position Maori claims for redress and social justice as “special privileges” for a minority and attempts to define equality in a narrow sense of equality of opportunity in the here-and-now while ignoring a history of colonization or a history of material and cultural deprivation (see also Sibley et al., 2008). Interestingly, a general orientation toward support for group-based inequality known as social dominance orientation (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999) that predicts various forms of ethnocentrism is correlated with opposition to biculturalism in principle, but is only weakly correlated with support or opposition to resource-based biculturalism among New Zealand Europeans (or Pakeha New Zealanders). Sibley and Liu (2004) interpreted this to mean that Pakeha New Zealanders had genuine anxiety that affirmative action policies for Maori might create new inequalities rather than simply reflecting modern forms of racism (see Liu & Mills, 2006). Any system of categorical preferences has the possibility of creating new injustices, and Pakeha especially in the media focus on these by highlighting the abuse of public funds by Maori elites (Liu & Mills, 2006). Sibley and Liu (2007) have referred to the combination support for biculturalism in principle with opposition to resource-based biculturalism as “the New Zealand dilemma,” a culture-specific national problem. According to theory of history and identity presented here, Myrdal’s (1944) identification of racism and the historical legacy of slavery as the “American dilemma” is also a culture-specific repertoire rather than a universal, as some social scientists seem to think. What binds these two dilemma together is history, and the legacy of Western civilization’s recent domination of other peoples like Maori in New Zealand and the
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Africans who were brought as slaves to the Americas. In cross-cultural psychology, universals are neither affirmed nor denied in principle, but treated as empirical questions instead. In the representational theory developed here, historical contingencies, that is, the legacies of history, are treated as key variables determining the universality versus culture specificity of psychological constructs relevant to peace psychology.
Step Three: Operationalizing Historical Representations as Legitimizing Myths or Group-Based Ideologies Unlike discursive psychology, social representations theory uses a plurality of methodological approaches. The discursive repertoires used to maintain postcolonial White privilege identified in the previous section can be transformed into precise psychological measures. Sibley and colleagues (Sibley & Liu, 2004; Sibley, Robertson, & Kirkwood, 2005; Sibley, Liu, Duckitt, & Khan, 2008) have progressively refined quantitative measures derived from prevalent local discourses to develop a cultural psychology of social identity and intergroup relations for New Zealand. Sibley et al. (2008) in particular reframed statements culled from qualitative sources to derive a measure of historical negation, which they argued was employed by the dominant majority as an ideological justification or legitimizing myth that justified contemporary inequality stemming from historical injustice. Statements loading positively on the scale, like “We should not have to pay for the mistakes of our ancestors” and “We should all move on as one nation and forget about past differences and conflicts between ethnic groups,” echo statements common in everyday discourse in New Zealand, just as reverse coded items like “Grievances for past injustices should be recognized and due compensation offered to the descendants of those who suffered from such injustices” and “We as a nation have a responsibility to see that due settlement is offered to Maori in compensation for past injustices echo opposing although less mainstream discourses.” The historical negation scale, which is comprised of eight such statements, was highly reliable (α= 0.92) and fully mediated the effects of two motivational goals, that for groupbased dominance and superiority (or social dominance orientation) and that for collective security and social cohesion (or right-wing authoritarianism) on attitudes toward resource-based bicultural policies (e.g., Maori ownership of seabed and foreshore and rates exemptions on Maori land). It partially mediated their effects on symbolic biculturalism (e.g., performance of the Haka, a Maori war dance at international sports events, the use of Maori cultural icons to promote New Zealand tourism). The overall amount of variance explained by historical negation on the bicultural policy preferences was a staggering 71% for resource-based policies and 59% for symbolic policies in one study. Therefore, to understand policies related to biculturalism, you must understand the function of ideology related to historical negation and very little else. Importantly, it is unlikely that the strong predictive utility of the historical negation scale was affected by content overlap, as the
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scale assessing historical negation contained discursive or ideologically prescriptive attitude statements (as described in the above paragraph), whereas social policy attitudes were assessed simply by asking people to rate their support for specific policies and did not contain any prescriptive evaluative component embedded within the statements. This emphasizes the strong role that socially elaborated ideologies anchored in historical context play in determining levels of support versus opposition for specific social policies. Such levels of precision in measurement are virtually impossible for universal measures taken from the literature in North America or Europe and applied elsewhere. They point to the utility of the culture-specific approach outlined here, where the symbolic landscape is first ascertained, then the relevant discursive repertoires articulating the language of symbols are identified, and then statements are extracted from these discourses to be operationalized as culture-specific measures of legitimizing myths like historical negation, where the sins of the past are acknowledged, but seen as irrelevant to the present and future. The measure of historical negation published by Sibley et al. (2008) is relevant to other disputes involving historical injustices. Certainly, historical injustice and subsequent mistrust of externally imposed authority are at the center of Taiwanese narratives of history as detailed by Huang et al. (2004), but Huang (this volume) argues that it is orientation toward the future not the past that is the driver of Taiwan’s current quest for sovereignty. The historical problems between Muslims and Hindus described by Khan and Sen (this volume) are the product of a form of historical romanticism and historical reconstruction more than an issue of historical grievance, and so the historical negation scale developed for New Zealand would be unlikely to be easily exported to India. On the other hand, the concept seems to appropriately capture aspects of the “naïve universalism” and historical discontinuity displayed by young Japanese as described by Atsumi et al. (this volume). In their review of history and identity for China and Japan, Liu and Atsumi (2008) noted that the current historical conflict between these two countries is a product of political decisions made in the Cold War, where Japan took the position as the principal ally of the United States and the “unsinkable aircraft carrier” against Communism in Asia after World War II. Japan consequently made its peace with the United States, but not its Asian neighbors. Post-war Communist China, on the other hand, narrated World War II and the Sino-Japanese War as a battle against capitalism and imperialism (often with the United States as an opponent), with China as the victor, and so did not single out Japan as its main historical opponent or victimizer. With the liberalization of China’s economy in the last 30 years, and the increasing inequality this has brought with greater wealth, Chinese now appear more nationalistic in their historical narratives, as Communism is not as credible as a ruling ideology (Gries, 2004; He, 2007; Liu & Atsumi, 2008). Since the Deng Xiaoping era, the mainland has been reconsidering its national historical narratives, including the view that China was a victim of Japan, particularly during the Nanjing massacre (see Gries, 2004, Chapter 5). This has led to periodic outbursts of sometimes violent protest against perceived Japanese recalcitrance over telling the truth about history. Liu and Atsumi (2008)
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argued that the time was right for Japanese and Chinese leaders to engage in a positive cycle of diplomacy beginning with a Japanese apology accompanied by actions to avoid future accusations of insincerity (i.e., settling the textbook controversies, avoiding official visits to the Yasukuni shrine, and setting up a humanitarian relief fund) and continuing with a reciprocal visit by a Chinese leader to commemorate Japanese suffering at Nagasaki. The basic point stands that elements of culture-specific experiences resonate in time with things that happened as part of the same historical period or movement in other parts of the world. Liu et al. (in press) summarize social representations of world history across 24 societies by reporting that “(1) world history is a story about politics and war, (2) representations of world history are focused on the present, and (3) characterized by Eurocentrism tempered by nationalism.” Paez et al. (2008) found that the collective remembering of World War II, being a victor nation, and suffering low casualties was positively correlated to willingness to fight in presentday conflicts. Conflict and the post-conflict narration of conflict (Liu & László, 2007) are central in describing the historical contingencies necessary for a geohistorical and systems-oriented approach to peace psychology. While the previous three sections have described steps toward developing a bicultural psychology for Aotearoa/New Zealand, many elements of this story are intertwined with events in world history taking place over the same time period. World War II was considered around the world as the most important event in world history. Some of its legacies have been settled, such as the discrediting of fascism and Hitler. But other post-war legacies are still in play, among them the post-war decolonization movement that has left important (and often bitter) legacies for many non-Western peoples. The rise of liberal democracy has brought freedom and better governance to the peoples of Western Europe and North America, but this has been experienced in more diverse and often negative ways by non-Western peoples (Liu, Li, & Yue, in press) because of the temporal coupling of the rise of political liberalism with colonization. The logic and necessity of these varying reactions to this “ideal state” of liberalism according to Western political theory (Fukuyama, 1992) are a fundamental assertion of the historical contingency premise of Liu and colleagues (see Hilton & Liu, 2008; Liu et al., in press). In China, for instance, an indigenous theory of benevolent authority has been used to justify Communist rule as the only source of protection from the predatory practices of foreign states that tried to dismember China from the 1840s to 1945 (Liu & Atsumi, 2008; Liu et al., in press). In New Zealand, as we have seen, people use liberal democratic arguments about freedom and equality “in principle” that render indigenous peoples’ claims for resources and group recognition as illegitimate: they are prejudiced against these claims in the broadest sense, not as racists, but as people whose cultural lenses are blind to the suffering that progress for Western peoples inflicted on non-Western peoples during the colonial era (see Walker, 1990). As recent qualitative work by Rata, Liu, and Hanke (2008) has shown, Maori people do not narrate colonial injustices as things of the past, but as part of an ongoing legacy of oppression and cultural dispossession. Biculturalism, in narrating New Zealand national identity as
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a partnership between Maori and the Crown (representing all other New Zealanders but mainly New Zealand Europeans or Pakeha), offers an alternative to liberal democracy’s ideal of one person, one vote and equality in principle translating into inequality in fact. According to a bicultural narrative, the past continues to be manifest in the present through post-colonial structures of inequality, discourses that justify these inequalities, and institutions that maintain social injustice for indigenous people. A bicultural theory of nation for New Zealand would not only strive to correct these injustices, but put forward a state where Maori people are considered partners not only symbolically, but in the administration of the realistic resources of the state. This is a continuing project that will not be solved easily: it links the action orientation of Asian social psychology (Atsumi, 2007; Liu & Ng, 2007) to a psychology of liberation (Martín-Baró, 1996) that moves beyond representation and culminates in our fourth and final step, action. This step is rarely taken in mainstream psychology, but is logical, given the degree of social injustice in the world and the constructivist epistemology that symbolic and representational theories espouse.
Step Four: Beyond Representations to Action: Ethics of Research as Good Social Practice Following Filipino indigenous psychologist Enriquez (1992), and Latin American liberation psychologist Martín-Baró (1996), Liu, Ng, Gastardo-Conaco, and Wong (2008) asserted that one domain where China and other developing countries in Asia may be able to equal or surpass the West is to employ a globally distributed form of action research to produce “psychological knowledge that is socially situated to produce direct benefits to all involved in its system of knowledge production” (p. 1165) – particularly students and local communities. This is because psychologists in the developing world, while often lacking in material resources, also have more freedom to think (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001) and act (Liu & Liu, 1999, 2003) in holistically interconnected ways than their developed world counterparts who are locked into institutions that demand that they publish or perish. According to Liu et al. (2008), developing countries will be driven by political and economic necessities caused by the end of cheap oil and climate change to develop working social sciences that contribute to community well-being because they do not have the surplus value to afford the purely epistemic social sciences characteristic of developed countries (see Atsumi, 2007). They proposed a globally interconnected psychology where grants from developed countries are used to fund collaborative projects with colleagues and students in developing countries that both serve knowledge production needs in first-world communities and produce direct societal benefits in third-world communities. In New Zealand, Maori intellectuals have argued that social scientists working in Maori communities should be accountable to them as a basic ethical requirement (Smith, 1999). The legal contract protecting participants and the institution typical
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of Western research ethics is not acceptable for a community that has been treated as an object of research, while rarely receiving any benefits from it. In tune with this new awareness of the necessity of redress for historical inequality, in New Zealand the only one of seven national centers of research excellence in the area of social sciences is the National Institute of Research Excellence in Maori Development and Education (http://www.maramatanga.co.nz/). Because lower levels of educational achievement have been identified as a causal factor related to negative social indicators for Maori, the center is devoted to fostering Maori postgraduate achievement as the major pathway toward research excellence, that is, producing social and human capital as a primary mission, and epistemological knowledge is a desirable by-product of this basic social good. On a smaller scale, the research cited previously has been used in practice to support academic achievement for Maori and the development of indigenous psychology in Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Psychology. Tutorials tailored to the needs of Maori students were begun five years ago in response to unacceptably high failure rates for first-year Maori students in psychology. The lessons from research were used to present the tutorials not as preferential treatment, but as equitable treatment to raise Maori pass rates to be equal to that of students from other ethnic groups. Non-Maori are not excluded from these tutorials, but the overall atmosphere and space is such that Maori cultural practices are the norm rather than New Zealand European practices. A kaiawhina tauira (senior Maori tutor) position was established to support academic achievement for Maori undergraduates, and in time, a cohort of Maori postgraduates has emerged, opening the door for a more truly bicultural psychology to emerge, with Maori researchers (e.g., Rata et al. 2008) strong in indigenous psychology engaging in dialogue with Pakeha (e.g., Sibley, Liu, & Khan, 2008). The indigenous psychology research group at Victoria University is currently engaged in developing research papers and modules for teaching the ethics of working with Maori, where accountability and long-term investment in community-based relationships are key features. Rather than describing representations, the group is in the business of creating alternative representations based on Maori culture and the inequities surrounding it that are a colonial legacy of New Zealand culture. A bridging sequence of dialogues between indigenous, bicultural, and mainstream psychology is envisaged as a theory of practice to allow multiple agendas to be fulfilled. Ultimately, peace psychology cannot support hegemonic, uniform practices across different groups and societies with different needs: the step from representational theory to a theory of situated and historically contingent practice is central to transforming research from narrative epistemic to narrative design sciences (Atsumi, 2007).
Conclusion This chapter traced the development of a general theoretical perspective operationalizing social representations of history in national cultures as tools to unpack culture-specific/historically contingent versus universal aspects of conflict and
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peacemaking. The research emphasized that New Zealand national identity is constructed out of a symbolic repertoire – including the Treaty of Waitangi and Liberal Democracy – rooted in historical perceptions. We argued that the ways in which history is (re-)presented in New Zealand serves an important ideological-justificatory function in both creating and maintaining inequality and providing the levers to attempt societal change. This conclusion has emerged from a synthesis of studies that yield a four-step framework: (Step 1) ascertaining the symbolic landscape of history, (Step 2) describing discursive repertoires in dialogue with historical symbols, (Step 3) operationalizing historical representations as legitimizing myths or group-based ideologies, and (Step 4) going beyond representations to social action. The key promise of such research is not the description of psychological processes that maintain or justify social systems, though this is necessary to understand the logic of how the society functions. Instead, we challenge both ourselves and others to take the fourth step and translate such research in action within the wider community. This can be achieved through multiple intertwined pathways, both by doing research that provides insight into the mechanisms and interventions that promote social change and by doing action research that functions, in its own right, as an instrument of social change. Atsumi (2007) refers to this as “flying with fraternal wings” of both scientifically sound and socially responsible research. Key benefits are to be found for both the social science and the social practice of peace psychology through the processes described here. On the social science side, for example, the work on discourse and historical representations in New Zealand has revealed that Moscovici’s (1998) taxonomy of different types of representations being hegemonic, emancipated, and polemical fails in describing intergroup relations. All groups in New Zealand consider the Treaty of Waitangi to be a central event of symbolic importance in New Zealand history, and all groups carry a narrative of New Zealand history involving interactions between indigenous (Maori) people and Europeans. This would appear to make the treaty a hegemonic representation, as Liu et al. (1999) tentatively proposed. However, subsequent research revealed that while all groups share this content, people differ in how they position this history in terms of contemporary relevance: those opposed to historical redress position the past as irrelevant to the present, whereas those in favor of historical redress position the present as embedded in structures produced by past injustices (Sibley et al., 2008). Much debate in New Zealand around issues like racism and ethnic diversity flows through the treaty and the relationship between Maori and the Crown (government), but different political agenda take the raw materials of history and configure them in a bicultural narrative that favors historical redress or a liberal democratic narrative that focuses on individual-level equity and the politics of the here and now (Liu, 2005). For social representations theory, the take-home message is that in democratic societies, representations are intimately connected to societal discourses that in the political domain allow precious few symbols to operate in a “hegemonic” manner. For social identity theory, this work shows how phenomena such as in-group favoritism that appear to be ubiquitous in laboratory settings become contingent on culture and shared knowledge in society once these are freed up to act as causal
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factors. More fundamentally, it suggests that the particular category system that is most salient in a country is based on historical experience, so the focus on race in the United States is a function of its history of the enslavement of Africans and the attempted elimination of Native Americans and their culture (Churchill, 1997; Mann, 2005); for these political agenda, a strong category system hardening ethnicity into race is politically expedient. A similar process of colonization without the additional burden of slavery and without the same degree of violence directed against natives has led to the predominant use of categories based on ethnicity, cultural learning, and partnership rather than race in New Zealand. The content of national identity in the United States and New Zealand seems contingent on the ways that their peoples have created and then tried to resolve historical dilemma (Sibley & Liu, 2007). For peace psychology, this means that the application of laboratory findings to real-world conflict should be exercised with great caution: symbolic representations form the ground for the conflict and peacemaking on which basic psychological models will stand or fall. The historical contingency premise of the symbolic theory of history and identity holds that history provides the symbol system or the meaningful content on which basic psychological processes operate. These symbolic representations are adaptations of a given people’s experiences of the world through time, providing them with psychological repertoires to manage the perennial problems in their society and connecting them to the world. They can be designed to manage radically different contingencies depending on whether the people being studied were benefactors or victims of the colonizing processes emanating from the West over the last five centuries. In terms of peace psychology in Asia, all Asian (and Pacific) peoples with the possible exception of Japan were on the victim side rather than the benefactor side of Western colonization. Japan suffered initially, with its national sovereignty compromised by American gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century, but adapted quickly during the Meiji restoration to bring in Western technology and bureaucratic systems to strengthen national unity. But in the Showa era that followed (see Atsumi, this volume), they also adapted Western nationalism and Western notions of racial superiority and inflicted them on other Asian peoples during the invasion of Korea, the Sino-Japanese Wars, and finally World War II. The narration of the common, then divergent, and perhaps once again common fates of the peoples of East Asia, who share so much culturally but have much recent history to divide them, is a crucial item on the agenda of peace psychology in Asia (Liu & Atsumi, 2008; Liu & Ng, 2007; see Liu & László, 2007on narrative theory). The most important premise of symbolic theory of history and identity that affects this peacemaking process is the idea that while historical representations constrain the range of political action, political actions and political agenda equally may reconfigure narratives of the past. Because there are no serious realistic conflicts between them today, political elites in Japan and China could decide to take actions described in Liu and Atsumi (2008) and Atsumi and Suwa (this volume) to resolve the historical conflict between them and heal the wounds of the past (just as they have been healed in large part in
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Western Europe). With “good” leadership, it can be political agenda that drives collective remembering, not vice versa (Paez & Liu, in press). The separation of Taiwan from China as a consequence of the first Sino-Japanese War and its 50 years as first a Japanese colony and then an anti-Communist Chinese society in opposition to the mainland is another enduring legacy of history that peace psychology confronts. Taiwanese, like many other Asian people living under democratic rule, configure their narrative of history as a movement from external, authoritarian, and unjust rule to freedom and self-determination (Huang et al., 2004; Huang, this volume). Ironically, the mainland Chinese narrative of history follows a similar path that brings it into direct representational conflict with Taiwan. Gries (2004) notes that contemporary Chinese narratives of history focus on not only the greatness of its ancient civilization, but the extent of the unjust humiliations inflicted on China in recent centuries by Western societies and Japan. The alienation of Taiwan from China is seen as an open wound and an affront to national pride, and hence any discussion of national sovereignty for Taiwan is taboo in Beijing. This is one representational conflict where we do not see any immediate or forthcoming resolution, because current political agendas involving the two societies are mutually exclusive. Economic cooperation with tactful political avoidance may be the best that can be hoped for at present. Finally, how the present weighs on the past can be seen in a negative direction as Khan and Sen’s chapter (this volume) illustrates. Hindutva, or Hindu nationalism for India, like Chinese forms of nationalism, tries to make sense of how a great civilization could have fallen on hard times in recent centuries, but unlike Chinese nationalism, it focuses more on romanticizing the past to capture the future. Khan and Sen (this volume) and Sen and Wagner (2005) show how the past can be romanticized and reconfigured in order to fulfill the political agenda of an emerging political party. As secularism and liberal democracy failed to bring sufficient benefits to broad masses of Indian people, they have looked to their own history and culture for alternatives: unfortunately, Hindutva excludes the largest religious minority (Muslims) from participation in such a national identity, leading to considerable tensions. The malleability of the past, especially the semi-mythological past of ancient history, is an important lesson for peace psychology that can be carried to other settings like the former Yugoslavia, where a representation of Kosovo as the “field of blackbirds,” a centuries-old battle between Muslims and Christians, was used to justify crimes against humanity by Serbian leaders. In both these cases, demagogic historical narratives demonizing a minority were used successfully by political leaders to win votes. Democracy is apparently no antidote for the use of historical narratives to mobilize sectarian conflict. Muluk’s (this volume) account of the settling of a smaller scale injustice in Indonesia underscores the same premise that the collective remembering of the past can be shaped according to the political agenda of the present, this time in the direction of peace rather than conflict. Social activists accepted monetary compensation from their former army persecutors and revised their historical accounts of grievance in order to move forward with their lives and not engage in perpetual conflict with
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a segment of Indonesian society (the military) that is very difficult to overcome or inflict punitive damage upon. As all these examples illustrate, the development of a symbolic theory of history and identity offers rich possibilities for intergroup relations and peace psychology. In Asia in particular, where issues of culture stand at the center of psychology, and where Asian peoples share a legacy of historically contingent reactions to Western colonization, analysis of the intermediate layer of representations and the institutions that maintain them are essential to the development of better forms of teaching, politics, and research practice that create new representations and improved intergroup relations.
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Part II
South Asia
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Where Are We Going? Perspective on Hindu–Muslim Relations in India Sammyh S. Khan and Ragini Sen
The twin issues of making peace and building it over time, which are very much at the forefront of social concerns in contemporary India, remain a major source of worry and require a thoughtful understanding. The lack of effort that has been dedicated towards the development of a systematic understanding of the psychological dynamics underpinning intergroup hostility and violence between Hindus and Muslims in India is disappointing to say the least. While elaborate analyses and accounts of these intergroup dynamics have emerged from academic disciplines such as sociology, political science, economics and history (e.g. Basu, Datta, Sarkar, Sarkar, & Sen, 1993; Brass, 2003; Engineer, 1995; Lal, 2003b; Ludden, 2005; Pandey, 1991; Varshney, 2002; Wilkinson, 2004), psychological theory and research with some predictive validity have been slow to emerge (Ghosh & Kumar, 1991; Hutnik, 2004; Kakar, 1996; Nandy, 1990; Singh, 1989). This brings to the forefront a couple of basic queries: (a) how can the discipline of psychology contribute towards the current understanding of intergroup dynamics in India and (b) can psychological theory and research translate into knowledge and action to promote peaceful coexistence in applied contexts? The objective of this chapter is to address these two questions which comprise the core of our account. We will begin this endeavour by briefly reviewing theoretical and empirical paradigms that have been explored previously. These will then be juxtaposed against the historical, social and political contexts of Hindu–Muslim relations in India to elucidate those issues that have been adequately investigated, but most importantly, those issues that need further elaboration and inquiry. Before embarking upon this assessment, we will provide a brief outline of the historical, political and social contexts of Hindu–Muslim relations in India. We maintain that for analysing socially meaningful phenomena it is necessary to depart from the habitually close confines of psychology’s argumentation and to include historical, cultural, social and political perspectives in analysis and theorising (Valsiner, 2001). Consequently, this chapter aims to gather insights from other disciplines and integrate them with psychological understanding in order to help augment the psychology of peace and conflict resolution.
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Hindu–Muslim Relations in Modern India: The Cultural, Historical, Political and Social Contexts Islam came into South Asia in the beginning as a religion and then as a political force. The Arab conquest of Sind (711–715) was followed later by raids into India by Mahmud of Ghazni (999–1026), rise of the principality of Ghor (1151–1192), Delhi Sultanate (1211–1504) and the Mughal Empire (1526–1858) at which point the last Mughal emperor was deposed by the British (Embree, A.T). Islam in India is the second-most practiced religion after Hinduism. There are approximately 151 million Muslims in India’s population as of 2007 (according to government census 2001), that is 13.4% of the population. Currently, India has the third largest population of Muslims in the world. However, unofficial estimates, coming from both Hindu and Muslim sources, claim a far higher figure (20–30%) supposedly discounted in censuses. This issue is prominent in political discourse and is amplified by representatives from both the communities. The pro-Hindutva forces claim that the high Muslim growth rate is intentional and a threat to the country and its Hindu character; Muslim spokesmen use it to raise the morale of a minority community perceived as under threat, economically as well as politically. In pre-partition India, Mahatma Gandhi described the social tension between Hindus and Muslims as “the problem of problems” (1930, cited in Singh, 1989). This saw its manifestation at the time of the partition of the Indian subcontinent. The partition was witness to the large scale mass migration of 12–14 million people; killing of over one million; and sexual abuse of an estimated 100,000 women. This just constituted the core. All over India, millions were affected by Hindu versus Muslim riots which were incited by religious hatred and uncontrolled fury. This was the foundation and the reality of partition. After partition there was an attempt to forget the painful past and as a corollary, a collective amnesia shrouded this traumatic period in India’s history (e.g. Lal, 2003b; Pandey, 1991; Gooptu, 2002). Silence, denial and modification of memory were the defence mechanisms used to stabilise India and steer it towards a new era. In order to rectify this collective amnesia, social scientists are now trying to reconstruct the partition that had virtually become a taboo issue of research and collective thought. Prior to this, the available literature on partition recounts only its “high politics”: the constitutional and political negotiations. The trauma and the tandava (dance of mass destruction) were forgotten. As far as historiography is concerned this fills an important lacuna. However, at the time of the partition, this imposition of collective amnesia or, as some would address it, “the tyranny of silence” was probably an astute political move. Brooding on this event and following the British policy of divide and rule would have further fragmented India, which it could least afford. The politics of memory was operationalised. The nature of conflicts between Hindus and Muslims in India has undoubtedly changed since the partition. In independent India, all hues of ideological players have taken part in unleashing retributive violence. For instance, the Indian National Congress (INC) spearheaded the anti-Sikh violence of 1984, and traditionally the
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state governments led by the INC turned a blind eye to the violence perpetrated by Hindu communalists. The irony of it all is that Gujarat, the birthplace of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, in 1969, bore witness to a nasty bout of violence against the Muslims under Hitendra Desai, a “Gandhian”. These were the bloodiest riots after 1947. It is important to bear in mind that the Hindu nationalist movement alone did not cause the rioting and massacres that occurred during the years of agitation leading up to the demolition of Babri Masjid (Akbar, 2003; Engineer, 1995). A long history of communalism (i.e. social tensions between ethnic communities) in which many sides joined over the decades preceded the demolition of the mosque. It would indeed be simplistic to reduce the history of communalism to the activity or ideology associated with any one set of sociocultural or political conglomeration because the history of Hindu–Muslim conflict in India is complex. However, overall, an interdisciplinary agreement exists that the increase of communal riots over the last three decades corresponds to the Hindu nationalist movement in India (e.g. Brass, 2003; Engineer, 1995; Jaffrelot, 1996; Ludden, 2003; Varshney, 2002; Wilkinson, 2006). The term Hindutva (literally meaning “essence of Hinduism”) was first coined and popularised by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled “Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?”. Later it was identified with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Hindu Mahasabha, which stood for Hinduising India and militarising Hinduism (Ramakrishnan, 2007). The Muslim League was organised in 1906 to mobilise Muslim identities for increasing collective Muslim representation in British India (Hardy, 1972; Jalal, 1985). From the beginning, the RSS and allied organisations opposed efforts by Gandhi and the INC to unify Indians of all religions (Basu et al., 1993). All these political outfits had been driven by a strong religious ideology that had been euphemistically termed cultural nationalism. However, the most significant facts are as follows: India was born out of “partition”, and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was shot by a Hindu. Nathuram Godse, incited by the Hindu lobby, while pretending to touch Gandhi’s feet at a prayer meeting, fired at him because Godse believed that Gandhi was doing uncontrollable damage to the Hindu cause because of his “soft line” towards the Muslims. Gandhi paid with his life for his spirit of secularism and for his efforts at building bridges of peace. Impelled by the disastrous consequences of ethnic conflict, which engulfed the subcontinent in 1947, the Indian government took on the role of reforming religion in the pursuit of social justice and equality. Hence, under the aegis of Jawaharlal Nehru (the first prime minister of independent India), the concept of secularism was imported from the West (Chopra, 1994). But its Western interpretation, which separates state politics from religion, was not followed. Post-independence, although the constitution was secular, the state apparatus – bureaucracy, judiciary, army and police – was infiltrated by Hindu communal elements. This resulted in a social development, which was mixed; on the one hand, secularism thrived, and on the other, communalism, which was hastily buried, did not die but remained dormant. The contemporary Hindu nationalist movement is a network of organisations, with the core consisting of the RSS, an organisation which was launched in 1925
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on the Vijayadashami Day by Keshav Baliram Hedgewar to champion the cause of right-wing ideologues; the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). The movement has its roots in the Hindu Mahasabha, and the emerging new entity is collectively termed the Sangh Parivar – a family of organisations that promotes the ideology of “Hindutva.” Social changes during the late 1970s and early 1980s gave communalism a strong boost, bringing the Sangh Parivar into prominence, and this conglomerate started attacking secularism in a big way. The BJP took on the mantle of “the” communal party. It quickly mushroomed, introduced communal rhetoric in the social space and openly declared its agenda of Hindu Rashtra (Jhingran, 1995). It was quick to capitalise on decades of gradual permeation of Hindutva, and using this as a take-off point, launched an ideological, social and political onslaught on secular ethos (e.g. Basu, 1996; Bhargava, 2002; Brass, 1991; Jaffrelot, 1996; Kakar, 1996; Lal, 2003a, b; McGuire, Reeves, & Brasted, 1996; Nandy, Trivedi, Mayaram, & Yagnik, 1995; Pandey, 2001; Punyani, 2003; Varshney, 2002; Zakaria, 2002) and syncretic culture (Sen and Wagner, 2009). Taking their lessons from this multilayered history, the BJP (1999–2004) made an attempt to orchestrate a social transition wherein an attempt was made to systematically crystallise ethnic identities. This trait is perceived in almost all kinds of nationalisms where, in the bid to create a nationalist identity, the immortality of the group is emphasised and the arguments in favour of its continuity underlined, so that people feel impelled to be the torch bearers (Smith, 1998). For instance, during the BJP regime, the push was that the core identity of a true Hindu be constructed around ancient Hindu lineage, acceptance of militancy, retributive justification of violence and perception of secular acts. Reviving Hinduism through the ancient Indian civilisation theme, the BJP was able to arouse the dormant embers of Hindu pride and retributive violence. Consequently, when the BJP and its allies sounded the clarion call for Hindu militancy, many jumped on the wagon. The BJP put into practice the processes through which traditions and past experiences are used to justify political agendas (Pennebaker, Paez, & Rime, 1997; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001; Sen & Wagner, 2005). Events which followed showed that the agenda of balancing the acts of history was wilfully accepted. Through the agency of Hindu revivalism, an attempt was made to harness the Muslim community and thereby rectify the wrongs suffered by the Hindus when they were under the domination of the Muslims. The project of Hindutva, which basically focuses on the building up of a mass mobilisation geared to the task of forging a new “Hindu” nation, began to take shape, and new symbols were created to operationalise this agenda. Events which have been witnessed throughout the last decade until the present establish that Babri Masjid had been the strongest political and social mobilising force of the Hindutva ideology. The controversial issue of the birthplace of Lord Rama (Babri Masjid-Ram Janambhoomi) has a long past. It started in 1855. The Babri Masjid is a mosque in Ayodhya, which is situated in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India. It was built by Mir Baqi, a nobleman in Babur’s court, in memory of the emperor Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur Badshah Ghazi, a minor prince of Ferghana (in modern-day Afghanistan) who founded the Mughal Empire in India,
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which ruled until the British Raj finally replaced it after the general mutiny of 1857 failed. On the night of 22 December 1949, idols of Lord Ram were installed in the mosque. This started the controversy that came to the fore in 1984 when the first “religious parliament” (Dharma Sansad) of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council) decided to “liberate” the site of Ram’s birth (janam). Campaigning for the “liberation” of the birthplace and temple of Lord Rama in the late 1980s, L. K. Advani, the home minister of the BJP, embarked on a chariot march (Rath Yatra) that was reminiscent of Hindu epics such as Ramayana and Mahabharata. He started the journey from the Somnath temple in Gujarat and continued for weeks before the crusade was stopped in Bihar where L. K. Advani was arrested (Sen & Wagner, 2005). Although the nature of the campaign was peaceful, 300 communal riots, the largest number since partition, erupted across India in the same year (Shah, 2004). Markedly, the BJP also gained increased political support. Following this, a clarion call was made for volunteers (kar sevaks) to assemble at Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. Millions of volunteers, from all over India, assembled, and in the ensuing fray, the Babri Masjid was demolished in five and half hours of frenetic activity and its debris thrown in the river Sarayu. Shortly after the demolition, massive riots took place all over India and with a demonic ruthlessness. The BJP entered the fray and made political capital of the situation. In 1989, the BJP held only two out of the 544 seats in the Lok Sabha (Lower House). By 1998, the party had gained 182 seats and ran the government of India until 2004. Undoubtedly, Babri Masjid, which in reality was a structurally dilapidated monument, was the core image around which the entire edifice of Hindutva was created. The core image of Babri Masjid – or figurative core (Moscovici, 1976; Abric, 1996) – determined each element of right-wing fundamentalism, its presence, its value and its function. Connecting an event in political discourse with Babri Masjid, it seems, was a guarantee to attach symbolic meaning to it, and vice versa, mentioning the event in turn appeared to objectify the symbol of Babri Masjid in the national identity. Thus, the trinity of Babri Masjid, Ayodhya and Lord Ram reaped rich dividends for the BJP and brought it to centre stage. The power of such events to spark widespread violence and consolidate Hindutva was demonstrated again a decade later, when a massacre in a train in Godhra (in the state of Gujarat) left 37 Hindu voluntary workers dead. The workers had been returning from a ceremony in Ayodhya and were burnt to death. The tragedy was blamed on Muslim “terrorists” and triggered violent riots of unparalleled brutality. Hindu mobs targeted Muslim communities throughout the state, and it was reported that members of the RSS and VHP led the riots. Human rights groups estimated that the death toll reached between 2,000 and 2,500, with a further 140,000 people dislocated in the aftermath of the massacres, many of whom still remain homeless (Brass, 2003; Shah, 2004). In this telling, if not a shocking example of identity politics, leaders of the BJP and VHP converted the train massacre into a symbolic representation that mobilised mass support for Hindutva, while the riots became symbolic of Hindu victory over Muslim oppression.
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Godhra succeeded in keeping the Babri symbol alive and consolidated Hindutva. These religion-inspired perceptions thus cast their shadows on everyday situations and were mapped onto the symbol, the masjid, as metaphorical entailment (Lakoff, 1987). Thus, memories related with the event in the past (Babri Masjid, Ayodhya) became associated with the new representational image (Godhra) and fuelled cognition and affect. This new representation had the power to vitiate institutional politics. It appears that the evocative strength of these representations, Godhra and Babri Masjid, when associated with dominance of Hindus, helped to anchor Hindutva, which symbolically represented itself as the supreme saviour of the threatened Hindu dharma (religion).
Trends in Psychological Research Unfortunately, the complex and multilayered cultural, historical, political and social contexts of Hindu–Muslim relations in modern India described above have not been mirrored in the psychological literature. A summary of the existing body of psychological theory and research addressing Hindu–Muslim relations paints the picture of a fundamentally fragmented and limited literature. Psychologists across the disciplinary spectrum have continuously failed to adequately place mainstream theories and methodologies within the contextual complexity of Hindu–Muslim relations. Limited samples, measurements and statistical tests have been ubiquitous. University students, adjective checklists, t-tests and correlations have hardly been compelling in explaining deeply entrenched intergroup dynamics. These points are still minor compared to the questionability of mainstream intergroup perspectives and their relevance for assessing and understanding the complex processes within which Hindu–Muslim relations in India are embedded. Theory building and research simply cannot attain any predictive validity if the historical, political and social contexts are ignored. In this part of the chapter, we illustrate the discrepancy between the psychological literature and the context of Hindu–Muslim relations in India. As a brief note, we would like to acknowledge that the existing body of psychological literature investigating Hindu–Muslim relations in India has been reviewed in different outlets, at different points of time (e.g. Ghosh & Kumar, 1991; Hutnik, 2004; Singh, 1989), and that this chapter does not set out to recreate these accounts. Although they have been used in outlining this section, we have structured it differently by presenting and adding research with the intention of assessing the literature from a peace psychological perspective.
Early Trends and Mainstream Developments The first, but probably most overlooked, psychological inquiry into Hindu–Muslim relations in India was conducted by K. M. Panikkar and published in The Contemporary Review in 1927. The paper entitled The Psychology of the Hindu–Muslim Riots
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was written to address a marked increase in hostility and violence between Hindu and Muslim communities in pre-independent India. Refuting popular hypotheses about essentialist differences, Panikkar proposed that the increase in tensions between the two religious communities was a direct result of political rivalry and the distrust of motives in the process of democratisation in India. While the Hindu community believed that every Muslim worked secretly for the establishment of Muslim power in India, there was a conviction among the Muslim community that Hindus wanted to expel them from India. Regardless of the “primitive and barbarous” (p. 235) nature of the Hindu–Muslim riots, Panikkar argued that they were an indication of Indian dynamism striving to establish a relational definition upon which a healthy national life could later be structured. Another landmark study was conducted by S. P. Adinarayan and was part of his systematic research programme assessing colour prejudice (1941, 1964) and racial and communal attitudes (1953, 1957). The paper entitled Before and After Independence: A Study of Racial and Communal Attitudes was published in The British Journal of Psychology in 1953. The paper reports results from a longitudinal between-subjects study of Hindu versus Muslim students and professionals’ attitudes towards a range of nationalities, such as Americans, Chinese and Turks, in two samples collected before (1934–1945) and after (1950) the partition. Most importantly, the study examined Hindu and Muslim participants’ attitudes towards each other’s religious communities. The results showed that both Hindu and Muslim professionals rated the outgroup more positively than students before the partition. Data was collected only among Hindus after the partition and revealed that they rated Muslims more negatively compared to what they had done before the partition. Panikkar’s (1927) and Adinarayan’s (1953) papers deserve mentioning because of the pre- and post-independence contexts in which they were published, but their influence on subsequent Hindu–Muslim relations are not comparable to that of Gardner Murphy’s (1953) book, In the Minds of Men: The Study of Human Behaviour and Social Tensions in India. The book summarises three years of research commissioned to UNESCO by the Indian government in 1949 to examine the nature of communal tensions in post-independence India, but also to advise the government on policies for the promotion of social harmony. Multidisciplinary teams of Indian academics were organised and devoted to examining intergroup issues of key concern in post-independence India. These issues included the following: (a) the hostility between Hindu residents, Hindu refugees and Muslim residents in Bombay; (b) Hindu–Muslim relations in Bombay, Lucknow and Aligarh; (c) the adjustment of refugees from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh); (d) the attitudes of textile mill workers in Ahmedabad and (e) Hindu and Muslim attitudes towards the tribal population of India. All of the studies were conducted through interviews and the administration of attitude questionnaires. The book presents a general description and rationalisation of the research, but does not report the research in full. The reported findings are too dense to review here, but to provide a gist, excerpts from the first study described how the Hindu refugees reported bitterness and frustration about their dependence upon the government and their lack of access
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to economic resources and geographic space, whereas the Muslim residents of Bombay reported uncertainty in their request for equal-citizen status. On the other hand, the Hindu residents of Bombay reported being very much uninformed of the problems of either the Hindu refugees or the Muslim refugees. Gardner (1953) sourced social tensions in Bombay to the lack of inter-communication between the two groups.
Contributions Central to Intergroup Research While Gardner’s (1953) undertaking was central in stimulating the development of intergroup research in India, Sinha (1998) and Pandey and Singh (2005) recognised that the fruitful foundation laid by Gardner had been lost over time. Subsequent intergroup research degenerated into causal investigations of the relationships between demographics and personality variables with caste, religious and other forms of prejudice. This critique still remains relevant and has been supported in other reviews of the Hindu–Muslim intergroup literature (e.g. Ghosh & Kumar, 1991; Hutnik, 2004; Singh, 1989). An overview of this substantial body of research is outside the purview of this chapter; hence, we will limit our observations to a few highly cited and influential papers. Taylor and Jaggi’s (1974) classic study of stereotypes and intergroup attributions in South India is by far the most cited publication. Their materials included 16 scenarios, involving a Hindu or Muslim actor behaving in either a socially desirable or undesirable way. Four or five possible explanations reflecting internal and external attributions of the behaviours were given per scenario. Two identical adjective checklists of positive and negative traits pertaining to Hindus and Muslims were also included in the survey. Without any reference to the history or the state of Hindu– Muslim relations in India at the time the research was conducted, their results showed that intergroup attributions and trait ratings were both ingroup favouring and outgroup derogating. Taylor and Jaggi suggested that their results had confirmed the link between attitudes, attributions and behaviour by simply having compared intergroup attributions side by side with corresponding patterns of trait ratings, rather than having examined their empirical connection. Although conducted in India, this study has been referenced more widely within mainstream social psychology and was one of the key pieces of empirical evidence presented in the formulation of Pettigrew’s (1979) “Ultimate Attribution Error.” The second most cited and arguably influential paper is Tripathi and Srivastava’s (1981) study of relative deprivation and intergroup attitudes among Muslimuniversity students. Their materials consisted of a scale measuring relative deprivation across economic, political and social domains and two identical adjective checklists of positive and negative traits that assessed perceptions of Muslims and Hindus in India. Median splits and t-tests of the responses showed that Muslim participants with high, compared to low, levels of relative deprivation displayed more ethnocentric attitudes towards Hindus.
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Finally, the third most cited paper is Hassan and Khalique’s (1981) study of religiosity and its correlates. Muslim participants were found to be more religious than the Hindu participants, and religiosity was correlated positively with anxiety, authoritarianism, intolerance for ambiguity and rigidity among both groups. Separate correlations for members of the two religious communities were not presented. Caste, gender, urban and rural differences were also compared, but showed no differences in scores between the Hindu and Muslims participants. The higher levels of religiosity found among the Muslim participants attributed the Muslim community’s minority status and subjective feelings of insecurity and anxiety created by frequent communal riots. The three studies outlined above provide a fairly objective representation of the quality of intergroup research undertaken in India and the areas covered. Unfortunately, recent research trends have generally not been more innovative, nor have they expanded in scope or enhanced in sophistication (e.g. Bano & Mishra, 2005; Basu, Hasan, Gangjee, Dasgupta, & Dey, 2005; Basu, Kaur, Ahluwalia, & Gangjee, 2006; Gaur, 2004; Mishra, 2005). There have been exceptions; however, even these have failed to contextualise the dynamics between the two religious communities. Theoretically and methodologically rigorous studies examining Norm Violation Theory (Ghosh, Kumar, & Tripathi, 1992), the Ultimate Attribution Error (Khan & Liu, 2008) and Integrated Threat Theory (Tausch, Hewstone, & Roy, in press) among Hindus and Muslims in India have all involved the blind implementation of mainstream theories of intergroup relations. The only contextual factor that has really been taken into account is the relative demographic size and status of the two religious communities in India, that is the Hindu community’s majority status and the Muslim community’s minority status. Community-level differences and unanticipated results have been attributed to a wider range of historical and sociopolitical factors by default, but these have never been operationalised, empirically tested or explained.
A Peace Psychological Perspective of Hindu–Muslim Research Peace psychologists (e.g. Christie, 2006; Leong, 2003; Montiel, 2003; Vollhardt & Bilali, 2008) and Indian social psychologists (e.g. Ghosh & Kumar, 1991; Hutnik, 2004; Pandey & Singh, 2005; Sinha, 1998) agree that research and theories emanating from their respective, yet overlapping, disciplinary domains of inquiry cannot ignore the wider contexts of the people and processes that they set out to understand. Sinha (1998) and Pandey and Singh (2005) have taken this standpoint towards the Indian literature in general and propagated for increased cultural relevance through the indigenisation of theory and methodology. Ghosh and Kumar (1991) and Hutnik (2004) addressed the Indian Hindu–Muslim literature specifically and were in general agreement with peace psychologists (e.g. Christie, 2006; Leung, 2003; Montiel, 2003; Vollhardt & Bilali, 2008) regarding the importance of contextualisation in studying the antecedents of intergroup
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violence and harmony. There is no doubt that these calls for contextualisation are important, but they run the risk of lingering in the same vacuum as the existing body of Hindu–Muslim literature, without complementary suggestions for improvement. Even if miniscule, there has been an alternative line of Hindu–Muslim research surfacing in the peripheries of mainstream social psychology. Moving beyond the study of mental processes, the primary focus of this trend has been the study of historical, cultural, social and political contexts within which the Hindu and Muslim communities of India are embedded. At this point it is appropriate to dip into history. As described at the outset of this chapter, the most significant change in Indian society in the last two decades has been the switch in the political hegemony of the INC and their secular democratic politics to the establishment and legitimisation of chauvinistic and exclusionary Hindu nationalist ideologies across the spheres of Indian society. Social psychological literature in this field has dealt with these issues in greater depth than was usually seen in earlier studies which, having been tied by the constraints of psychology per se, remained microscopic in their approach. The following research studies have perhaps transcended this limitation, and we will briefly describe them since they may help create a trend towards a more robust understanding of psychological issues related to conflict, violence and, by default, peace and conflict resolution. Tripathi (2005), in his paper on Hindu Social Identities and Imagined Past: The Face-off Between Ram Temple and Martyred Mosque at Ayodhya, succinctly argues that social identities emerge and fade on the basis of a social context, and most often situations are attributed meanings which are based on one’s lived experiences. In the course of the paper, Tripathi assimilates the discourse on communalism and its various hues to help understand the dynamics of the Ram Janambhoomi issue at Ayodhya. The historical context of the conflict is presented and an attempt is made to demonstrate how past memories are selectively employed for the dual purpose of constructing as well as maintaining social identities. This thesis has been supported by interview data obtained from both Ram Bhakts (devotees of Ram) and students. It is illustrated that the formation of social identities is a complex and continuous process in which groups use different pasts. The final argument is that in contemporary India, there is a need to create a space for positive recollection of the past and to integrate it with the present in order to help create a syncretic culture. Similarly, making use of interview data, Sen and Wagner (2005; 2009; Sen, 2005), with the belief that Hindu–Muslim conflict in India poses a permanent threat to the country’s peace and civil relations, conducted a field study in Dharavi, allegedly Asia’s largest slum and high on the scale of a riot-prone area. The respondents belonging to both Hindu and Muslim communities were personally familiar with violence since they resided in Dharavi, where the demolition of the mosque at Ayodhya had been the site of one of the bloodiest riots. Given the communal surcharge and politically sensitive nature of the research, they made use of visual stimuli. In order to illuminate the symbolic representational value and
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affective power of pictorial propaganda, images depicting historical events (such as those from the 1992 and 2002 events, as well as from earlier events) and political symbols were presented to Muslim and Hindu respondents in an interview. The respondents were shown the visuals and then their reactions, which became akin to storytelling, were probed. Reference can be made to Mamali (2006), regarding the usefulness of this methodology and its implications. Setting aside interviewrelated logistics, visual stimuli were also used by Sen and Wagner because they believed that historical symbols are part of a cultural narrative which can be used to mobilise public opinion, since it is assumed that there is a feedback loop between representations of the past and the social identities of the here and now. In their first paper, Sen and Wagner (2005) show how symbols used in daily political life are powerful in evoking representations from past events, for example relating to the division of India more than half a century ago. They argue that these representations are still strongly affectively charged and lend their mobilising force to promote interethnic hatred and violence even today, and accordingly are exploited by fundamentalist politicians. Hindu and Muslim representations are similar in their cognitive content, but opposed in their affective and motivational charge. Based on the same field study, Sen (2005) in Us vs. Them and Gandhi: The Case of Hindu–Muslim Conflict in India argues that symbols, myths and metaphors (social representations) can modify the existing knowledge base. Their results showed that by changing the definition of words and by the introduction of a new representation, Hindu nationalist ideologues made an attempt to change collective thought and thereby increase their hold on the Indian mindset, and Militant Hinduism, a new reincarnation of Hinduism, had slowly become a shared representation. Members of both Muslim and Hindu communities had begun to feel that their religious identity had been diluted and that this should be rectified. Thus, social positions and newly emerging social identities had begun to anchor and force themselves upon the cognitive system. Adding yet another dimension to the research on Hindu–Muslim relations, Sen and Wagner (2009), in Cultural Mechanics of Fundamentalism: Religion as Ideology, Divided Identities and Violence in Post-Gandhi India, analyse the history and present of Hindu fundamentalism as it developed since India’s independence. It is shown that in the course of its rise, Hindutva deconstructed Gandhian symbolism of non-violence, re-interpreted cultural symbols to become political signs and prepared the ground for communal violence. Secularists and the religious outgroup – Muslims – became targeted as enemies. In the resulting Hindu ethnic dominance, religion was changed from being a faith and turned into an ideology. It is shown that such an ideologically charged mindset draws on a distinct religious and ethnic identity, erects strict borders towards other groups and justifies violence against them by their mere otherness. A different methodological approach to the same phenomena has been taken by Khan, Liu and Fischer (2007, 2008) in their ongoing research programme, which investigates the structure and content of the Hindutva ideology and its workings within India’s social and political processes. Elaborate thematic analyses (Braun &
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Clarke, 2006) of foundational and official Sangh Parivar publications, such as Savarkar’s (1923) pamphlet Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? and Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar (1939) book We or Our Nationhood Defined, yielded 10 recurring historical narrative templates (Wertsch, 2002) not only on the subjects of the heritage of the Hindu faith, people and nation, but also on the historical influences of Christianity and Islam in the Indian subcontinent. For example, one of the themes involves the idea that “true” Indians share a bond of common Hindu blood inherited from the ancient Indus civilisation. “Outsiders,” such as Arabs, Turks and British, who cannot trace their heritage back to the Indus civilisation can therefore never consider themselves to be true Indians. A second theme involves the notion that India and Hinduism are indistinguishable. This ideological proposition actively rejects secular democratic governance of India and justifies the subordination of minority groups that are not indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, such as Muslims and Christians. Scale items were extracted on the basis of the thematic analyses in the second phase of the project and piloted together with a range of generalised psychological variables of prejudice. The quantitative analyses culminated in a 12-item scale of Hindutva ideology that predicted variance in socio-politically relevant dependent variables, such as support and justification for the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the banning of religious conversion of Hindus, above and beyond variables, such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1996) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). The project is currently in its third phase, investigating how the relationship between Hindutva and prejudice towards Muslims is aggravated and mitigated by social processes, such as collective remembering (e.g. Middleton & Edwards, 1990; Pandey, 2001), economic competition (e.g. Esses, Jackson, & Armstrong, 1998) and intergroup contact (e.g. Allport, 1954; Hewstone & Brown, 1986; Pettigrew, 1986). The studies outlined above provide a convincing account of how a social phenomenon, comprehensively researched within the disciplines of history, political science and sociology (e.g. Brass, 2005; Engineer, 1995; Jaffrelot, 1996; Ludden, 2003; Varshney, 2002; Wilkinson, 2006), can and has been integrated into the domain of psychology. The research has described the sociopolitical context within which the indigenous Hindutva ideology emerged, qualitatively and quantitatively operationalised the ideology and examined the social and political processes within which the ideology is embedded. The research may be classified under indigenous and peace psychology. It contributes to both, but most importantly, it has contributed to an increased psychological understanding of one of the most pertinent sociopolitical dimensions within which the Hindu–Muslim relation in modern India is located. Further, the cultural dynamics analysed in the above-mentioned studies cast some doubt on the view that religious fundamentalism is first and foremost a psychological phenomenon (Ellens, 2006; Hood, Hill, & Williamson, 2005). We do not wish to minimise the role of psychological factors in general, but movements such as Hindutva as well as others around the world embrace too many different people to be accounted for solely by shared psychological traits; instead, the actors share a similar background of culture, social class and caste. Perhaps we may suggest that
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fundamentalist movements that blossom hand in hand with nationalist politics are at their core, collective events that irresistibly engulf the individual actors and bring them to commit acts that only become possible with the background of mass action. The underlying psychology is a societal psychology of collective representing and acting rather than a psychology of personality. We are talking here of collective states and not of individual traits. An integration of indigenous and peace psychological perspectives will be fruitful not only in the development of a multidisciplinary study of Hindu–Muslim relations in India, but also in understanding intergroup relations in other parts of the world. Peace psychology explicitly recommends theoreticians and researchers to take into account the geo-historical context (Christie, 2006) in the study of intergroup violence and peace. Hence, it is directly aimed at building an understanding of the factors and processes that bring upon and reduce intergroup violence. Like indigenous psychology (e.g. Enriquez, 1994; Hwang, 2005; Sinha, 1998), peace psychology can be understood as the study of people for the people, with a focus on intergroup relations. The theoretical foundations of indigenous and peace psychology have already been paved, but the combination and application of these perspectives to the study of Hindu–Muslim relations in particular, and intergroup relations in general, remain unexplored. An indigenous approach to theory building and research would limit itself to the study of indigenous Indian constructs and processes, but combined with a contextualised peace psychological analysis of intergroup violence and peace, the scope can be extended to include complex multidisciplinary descriptions.
Suggestions for Future Research No specific research programme can explain the complete spectrum of variables and processes underpinning any given intergroup context. A comparison of the literature that has emerged from psychology with the disciplines of history, political science and sociology suggest that multiple avenues can and should be further explored for the development of a peace psychology of Hindu–Muslim relations in India. Some frameworks that have emerged from other social sciences, which we believe warrant further psychological inquiry, will be proposed and outlined in this part of the chapter. Our suggestions are by no means complete, but provide some insights and examples of how interdisciplinary bridges can be built between psychology and other social sciences.
Interethnic Engagement Varshney (2002), Brass (2003) and Wilkinson (2004) have proposed that Hindu– Muslim violence is likely to be instrumentally incited for electoral advantages, particularly in times of upcoming elections. For example, Hindu nationalist parties tend
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to represent primarily the upper castes and fail to attract lower-caste Hindus with promises of redistribution for two reasons. First, the promise would not be credible. Second, it may alienate upper-caste supporters. When electoral forecasts predict a loss or close race, Hindu–Muslim riots are incited to pull more support and votes from lower-caste Hindus for Hindu nationalist parties. Brass (2005) has referred to this as institutionalised riot systems. But not all Indian cities experience outbreaks of violence in these times. Varshney (2002) has proposed that the main differences between Indian cities that experience Hindu–Muslim violence compared to peaceful coexistence are the levels of interethnic engagement experienced between the two religious communities. Interethnic networks build bridges, manage tensions and are agents of peace, but if the communities are organised along interethnic lines and the interconnections with the other community are weak, or even nonexistent, then eruptions of violence are likely. Varshney supported his thesis by classifying Indian cities into riot-prone versus peaceful cities on the basis of Hindu–Muslim riot statistics ranging from 1950 to 1995. Case studies of selected cities chosen on the basis of similarities in demographic proportions provided descriptions of how interethnic networks had failed to develop in riot-prone cities (e.g. Ahmadabad, Aligarh and Calcutta) and prospered in peaceful cities (e.g. Lucknow, Hyderabad and Surat). Everyday and associational engagement between members of the Hindu and Muslim communities in the form of routine everyday interactions, peace committees and business associations flourished in peaceful cities, whereas interethnic networks were weak and even nonexistent in riot-prone cities. The role of interethnic engagement in the promotion of peace has arguably already been explored in studies of the contact hypothesis, but existing research has not told the complete story. Tausch et al.’s (2009) research examined intergroup contact without classifying the contexts within which the interactions were taking place. Furthermore, the research did not compare riot-prone versus peaceful cities. It is undoubtedly important to understand that intergroup contact affects intergroup attitudes, but to be able to translate research findings into preventions and interventions, it is even more important to understand the contexts within which intergroup contact promotes peaceful coexistence. How then do the contexts of Hindu–Muslim contact differ in riot-prone versus peaceful cities? What contexts of intergroup contact make the Hindu and Muslim communities more resistant to the pressures of polarising political discourses? Arguably, these two questions can be answered by examining intergroup contact in multiple contexts to explore the circumstances and conditions that most effectively buffer communal tension, prejudice and hostility. Adequate sampling from riot-prone and peaceful cities would allow for a comparison of differences in the nature of Hindu–Muslim contact in the two types of cities. The outcomes from such a research programme would systematically elucidate the psychological and structural variables that differ between the two types of cities. The research findings could then be used as an empirical foundation for lobbying social and political policies that promote peace in riot-prone cities.
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Urban Versus Rural India Hindu–Muslim violence is primarily an urban phenomenon, and intergroup relations in rural India, where a majority of Indians still live, have largely been unaffected by outbreaks in the urban centres. Between 1950 and 1995, rural India accounted for just 3.6% of the deaths in Hindu–Muslim violence (Varshney, 2002). Thus, there is a call for research to expand sample coverage into the rural areas of India, particularly in states fraught with communal tension and violence. Shankar and Gerstein’s (2007) qualitative research provides one example of how the foundation of such research could be structured. Following the 2002 Gujarat riots, they interviewed a small sample of Hindu and Muslim residents living in the city of Vadodara and tried to describe the rationale for their perception of violence and their beliefs about solutions between the two religious communities. The interviews revealed that the residents had not experienced any particular change in the relationship between the two groups before and after the riots. There was always a sense of uncertainty and fear of another eruption, but generally the residents expressed hope for the future and for the younger generations to learn how to live in peaceful coexistence. The perpetrators were unanimously believed to be outsiders, and the responsibility for bringing peace and harmony was mainly perceived to be with the community itself, but also with the government. By asking larger samples of urban and rural populations similar questions, systematic comparisons of responses could unearth important differences in cognitions and processes underpinning communal tensions and peaceful coexistence between these two populations. Specifically, comparisons could clarify how intergroup perceptions and communications between the two populations differ in everyday interactions and during episodes of communal tension and violence. Elaborated insight into the difference between the two populations and how they cope with inflammatory political discourses would be particularly important and relevant. The findings could be used as an empirical foundation for future research addressing whether and how dynamics in rural communities can be implemented in urban populations to promote peaceful coexistence. Once a range of central factors and processes have been identified and narrowed down, research in this area would not have to be restricted to exploratory qualitative methods, but could also include quantitative methods and action research projects.
Development and Operationalisation of Context-Sensitive Measures More importance has to be placed upon the development and operationalisation of context-sensitive measures in the future. For example, even though resistance against polarising political discourses could easily be assessed with scales of symbolic and realistic threats (Stephan & Stephan, 2000), or with the Hindutva scale developed by Khan et al. (2007, 2008), existing scales of realistic and symbolic threats have not been developed, or even modified, for the Hindu–Muslim context.
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This is likely to explain why Tausch et al. (2009) did not find symbolic or realistic threats to mediate between intergroup contact and attitudes among either Hindus or Muslims. A more context- and conflict-specific modification of the scale items would very likely have yielded different results. For example, realistic threats commonly evoked by Hindu nationalist parties and politicians against Muslims include government funding for the maintenance of medieval mosques, the construction of new mosques, hajj subsidies and the inclusion of Muslims in the reservation quota for central government jobs and university admissions. Symbolic threats include conflicting loyalties and interests towards India and Pakistan among Indian Muslims and the fertility rate of the Muslim population, which is often argued to be proportionately higher than that of the Hindu population (see Jefferey & Jefferey, 2002). These are just some examples of political content that could be integrated into the items of the existing scales of realistic and symbolic threats. The mediating effects of polarising political discourses could alternatively be manipulated in experimental settings by presenting Hindu and Muslim subjects with literary or audiovisual materials from actual political campaigns. Studies of this nature do not necessarily have to be limited to examining intergroup contact, attitudes and their mediators, but can also include a range of other relevant structural, social and personality variables. What is most important is that theories and methodologies that are implemented are grounded in the geo-historical context of Hindu– Muslim relations in India. This does not necessarily imply that frameworks derived from Western or other non-Indian contexts should be completely discarded; they just have to be adequately assessed and modified before implementation. Selected mainstream intergroup frameworks currently exist, for example intergroup emotions (e.g. Mackie & Smith, 2002) and intergroup forgiveness (Moeschberger, Dixon, Niens, & Cairns, 2005; Tam, et al., 2008, 2007; Philpot & Hornsey, 2008), that certainly could prove to be relevant for the promotion of peaceful coexistence. Future studies could unveil not only how narrative templates of historical intergroup transgressions within the Hindutva ideology implicate adverse intergroup emotions, but also if and how these could be reduced by intergroup forgiveness. If the null hypothesis is rejected, the concept of intergroup forgiveness would warrant serious consideration in future research and roundtable discussions on policies for the promotion of peaceful coexistence between the Hindu and Muslim communities of India.
Towards Syncretic Cultures In the aftermath of the Cold War, it is increasingly evident that violence is not primarily between nation states engaged in power plays; it is increasingly between ethnic or religious groups, often within nation states. The case of Hindu–Muslim conflict with which we have dealt is a pointer in that direction. The communal environment that consequently loomed after the partition led Hindus and Muslims to anchor their sense of identity and self-esteem within their own
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cultural group. This enhanced a sense of security, but also pride that was stoked by demagoguery to help sustain their political agendas. This in turn strengthened each group’s sense of identity, and not only promoted a negative perception of the other group but also led to a hetero-referential perception of experiences (Shankar & Gerstein, 2007; Sen & Wagner, 2005, 2009; Sen, 2005; Kakar, 1996, 2000). Ethnic identities became focussed, stereotypes heightened and a perception of each other in terms of shared category characteristics was formed. Consequently, an inevitable homogenisation and depersonalisation followed. The cultural dynamics analysed in the context of Hindu–Muslim conflict in contemporary India shows that increasing numbers have begun to allude to religion as becoming their all-encompassing and exclusive identity that sets them apart from their neighbours who do not share in the same creed, hence creating sharp divisions between proximal ethnic groups. Driven by factors more akin to an ideological mindset, people have begun to mould their behaviour within the straitjacket of prespecified terms of reference, which are circulated at the collective level. Such overarching systems of partitioning have led to the creation of different ethnic identities where a singular trait, based on religion, foments the entire structure of the identity and hastily reduces the complexity of identity to a unidimensional phenomenon (Sen, A. 2006). A new frame of reference grounded in an interactive historical past has to be created in order to resolve this complex issue. Academic discourse needs to accept that peacemaking in situations of interethnic conflict is highly dependent on social representations of historical conflict (Liu & Hilton, 2005; Hilton & Liu, 2008; Liu & Atsumi, 2008). In the Indian context, the right-wing ideologues have subverted history and created their own charter which led to clear divisions in the polity. However, the same processes can be turned on their head. Referential points of anchoring derived from syncretic cultures and the use of collective symbolic coping (Wagner, Kronberger, & Seifert, 2002) can help to overcome interethnic divide. Once identified, these referential points may help in promoting an integrative process that may lead to the formation of a syncretic plural society which is based on the strong foundation of a multilayered identity, where religion is considered a factor, amongst many others, on which identity pivots itself (Tripathi, 2005). As our analysis shows, both Hindus and Muslims had gradually set aside the rich cultural heritage of syncretic religion and rode rough shod on little traditions during the BJP regime. Rustic homilies, exotic and integrated remixes, which served as a spiritual balm, were replaced by didactic religious tenets. Consequently, the lines of ethnic identity had become clearly demarcated, and syncretic culture did not seem to be attractive. It appeared to have lost its pull. Sen and Wagner (2009) argue that this trend was in sharp contrast to earlier Indian culture, where often enough, the religious space of common people remained fluid and incorporated elements from the great traditions, whatever be their origin: Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or tribal. This eclectic assimilation, which was free from the boundaries of religion, had helped people to come to terms with an often hostile environment within which they existed. The most outstanding example of such cultural intermingling was that which took place between Hindus and Muslims over
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an extended period and gave rise to syncretic popular cultures, which are not centrally organised and lack a formal canon. Both religions had integrated some aspects of the other within their own mainstream religiocultural matrices. As a result, syncretic cultures grew. Consequently, unusual gurus, “the dramatist of popular angst” (Banerjee, 2002), struck a chord in people’s imagination. Banerjee’s account of saint Satyapir or Satyanarayan who claimed that “I am Rahim in Mecca, in Ayodhya Ram ” lucidly illustrates this dual religious identity. Two distinct religious identities (Hindu and Muslim) were merged and used interchangeably. Yet another testimony of this cultural intermingling was that all over India, posters were sold which together with the icons of Mecca and Medina depicted the portraits of saints and a pictorial version of the legends and miracles associated with them. Such syncretic cultures, we believe, will help strengthen the roots of a multicultural society by being effective in overcoming the power of institutionalised riot systems, blurring interethnic lines and increasing interconnections/contact. These may together help in evolving a reconciliation perspective which is a step towards resolving emotional issues that may have previously left ethnic groups estranged (Nadler & Liviatan, 2004). In the creation and maintaining of such syncretic cultures, it is the richness of multidimensional identity and the use of symbolic coping mechanisms which perhaps need to be focussed on and their importance cognised. A lesson for this can be learnt from Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who, in pre-independent India, through the use of symbols helped to bridge the schism between the Hindus and Muslims and managed to overcome the British policy of divide and rule (Sen & Wagner, 2009). This approach if adopted may help replace the cacophony of discord with harmonious coexistence and be an important step towards the creation of peace in Asia.
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Political Violence and Peacebuilding in Jammu and Kashmir Waheeda Khan
When violence is prolonged, it becomes part of life. Kashmir – once known as a ‘Paradise on earth’– now symbolizes a conglomerate of human errors that have spewed more than a decade of violence, eroding the ethos of a state known for its peace-loving, artistic and intellectual populace. This chapter traces the erosion of a community by understanding the development of political violence in Kashmir. In short, the conflict ‘of’ Kashmir (originally a dispute between India and Pakistan) has been replaced by the conflict ‘in’ Kashmir (a conflict within the territorial space of India). The conflict ‘in’ Kashmir has gone through several stages since 1989 and has developed into a violent-insurgency movement. Besides the loss of life and livelihood, the other casualty of the conflict has been the loss of trust and values of coexistence that are essential for the survival of any community. The chapter further focuses on social aspects of violent conflict, conflict intervention and peacemaking as the strategy of nonviolence and finally highlights peacebuilding activities. While a peace process holds out the prospect of reducing the costs of an ongoing conflict, it is in the realm of humanitarian benefits that peace processes can have the most impact. Peacebuilding activities are currently taking place in Kashmir, but its sustenance depends on changing people’s perceptions, collective actions, trust building, reconciliation and due recognition of nonviolent means of effecting change.
Kashmir Conflict The Kashmir conflict started with the emergence of India and Pakistan as independent states in 1947. Since 1948, India and Pakistan have fought at least four conventional wars, and three of them were over the issue of Kashmir. Wedged between the two new nuclear-armed states of India and Pakistan, Kashmir has been described as ‘the most dangerous place on earth’. Although the conflict over Kashmir is now more than 60 years old, efforts to address this protracted conflict have remained largely ineffective; both sides have remained steadfast in their accusations of the other. Accurate figures of casualties in Kashmir are difficult to come by: estimates for the total number of fatalities since the start of the latest tahrik (movement) in C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_4, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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1989 range from 30,000 to as many as 60,000. Since the mid-1990s, the violence in Kashmir has accounted for an average of over 2,700 lives annually – equivalent to one September 11 episode and well above the death toll in the Middle East every year (Government of India, 2004). It is often argued that the conflict has its origins in the unfinished partition of 1947 (Thomas, 1992).
The Partition and Accession In 1947, a mass exodus of Hindus and Sikhs into India and Muslims into Pakistan amidst gruesome violence, sexual assault, looting and arson was the hallmark of the partition period. The impact of such inhuman turmoil was felt even in Jammu and Kashmir, where a large number of Muslims fled from the Hindu-dominated Jammu region. The mutiny of Muslims against the Dogra ruler facilitated the tribal invasion in October 1947. As the Indian forces put a stop to the Pathan advance towards Srinagar, regular forces from the Pakistan army gradually became more involved. Although the conflict was brought to the UN in January 1948, a cease-fire agreement came into effect only on 1 January 1949 (Dawson, 1995). The cease-fire line agreed upon, supervised by the United Nations Military Observer group in India and Pakistan, turned into the line of control (LOC). This subsequently became the de facto border between India and Pakistan and remains till today (Fig. 1). More than a third of the area of Jammu and Kashmir came under the control of Pakistan and is now commonly known as Azad Kashmir in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) by the Indian government. Likewise, the part remaining in India is referred to by the Pakistan government as India-occupied Kashmir, but in India it is called Jammu and Kashmir. The Vale of Kashmir was the only part of the state that went against the overall logic of partition as it remained with India despite its Muslim majority.
Fig. 1 Kashmir
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The terms and conditions of the accession accentuated the confusion and ambiguity surrounding the national identity of the citizens of Kashmir. Through the instrument of accession, the state handed over only three major powers to the union of India – defence, communication and external affairs. In October 1949, a special provision in the Indian constitution, that is Article 306A, extended such autonomy to Jammu and Kashmir though it was to be an ‘interim system’ contingent on a plebiscite through which the people would be able to decide their fate. The accession of Jammu and Kashmir was thus left incomplete and open to accommodate the issue of autonomy through self-determination, which was the desired objective of the National Conference (NC) and its leader Sheikh Abdullah. The message given to Kashmiris was that by acceding to India, they were sacrificing only part of their independence over defence, communication and foreign affairs to save the rest. As a result of the Delhi accord, Jammu and Kashmir got a separate constitution, separate flag, end of Dogra rule and an elected Sadar-i-Riyasat. Sheikh Abdullah, the prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir, ratified Kashmir’s autonomy through the Delhi agreement and an enshrinement of Article 370 in 1952. Abdullah’s dreams of autonomy for the state were on the brink of being realized. But the Hindus in Jammu did not share the same aspirations, and some even favoured a separate statehood for Jammu (Verma, 1994). The land reform measures initiated by Abdullah’s government also offended the key leaders of Ladakh who joined the protest against the Srinagar-dominated administration. The Sheikh’s attempts to safeguard Kashmir’s unique status sanctioned by Article 370 was perceived as an act of treason by the Indian government and led to many political developments starting in 1953, which gave rise to political violence in Kashmir (Bose, 1997, 2003; Prakash, 2002; Puri, 2002; Verma, 1994). These were the Sheikh’s arrest in 1953; Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s ministership; the arrest of Bakshi and his replacement by G. M. Sadiq in 1963; the Hazratbal crisis; the application of Articles 356, 357 and 249; the changing of the special nomenclature in 1965; the India–Pakistan war of 1965 and 1971; the Simla pact/agreement of 1971; the release of Sheikh Abdullah and the Kashmir Accord in 1975; the election in 1977; Farooq Abdullah’s (son of Sheikh Abdullah) and Indira Gandhi’s fallout in 1983; the electoral/political charades of 1984 and a critical election in 1987. Therefore, after the Sheikh’s arrest, slowly and steadily the tenets of Article 370 were broken down and the process of enforced assimilation became almost complete. A significant agreement signed at Simla in 1971 needs special mention, which stipulated that both countries should solve their conflicts by peaceful means and bilateral negotiation and that the old cease-fire line was to become the LOC. The accord, however, provided no specific solutions to the Kashmir problem (Chopra, 1988; Kadian, 1992). The failed dream of maintaining a national Kashmiri identity independent of the identity of the nation (i.e. India) it had acceded to, accompanied by a mockery of democracy, was among the main factors leading to discontent and eventually political violence. The political juggling that ensued and eroded the much-invoked Article 370 scripted the explosive political violence after 1989. Nationality formation, defined as ‘the process by which objectively distinct groups of people or ethnic
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groups acquire subjective self-consciousness and political significance either within an existing state or within separate state’ (Brass, 1991; Wani, 1993), was an elusive element in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, and like its dual name held disparate identities, aspirations and political consciousnesses. As a result, there exists a sense of struggle among the valley’s people to gain autonomy within the existing state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Anatomy of Political Violence Violence, which takes place in order to achieve political ends, is political violence, and whenever social violence comes into this area, it becomes political (Singh, 1989). Gurr (1980) defines political violence as . . .all collective attacks within a political community against the political regime, its actors – including competing political groups as well as incumbents – or its policies (p. 3)
Political violence takes many forms and is a result of many factors. The roots of the Kashmiri uprising are complex, because the policy failure of the central government, political and social currents in the valley and Pakistan’s role are all intertwined (Wirsing, 1994). The violence became political because more people perceived ‘deprivation’ as related to political ‘power’ rather than economic or interpersonal values (Gurr, 1970). As a political phenomenon, it is unrelated to individual grievances but represents the discontent of an entire community which suffers from a sense of discrimination and deprivation more in terms of political power than in terms of economic benefits, and thus the community comes to believe that its dignity and identity are threatened (Puri, 1993). Political violence in Kashmir since 1988 depended on a number of factors broadly classified as relative deprivation, institutional support of dissidents and regime, regime control, distribution of dissidents and external support to dissidents, and these are further discussed. Bose (1997) captures the essence of discontent when he writes ‘Kashmiris simply wanted basic democratic rights, including representative accountable government and a voice in determining the destiny of their homeland’ (p. 35). According to Jha (1996), militancy in Kashmir is not born out of poverty or economic deprivation, but out of the despair of a small, select group of young people who form a new but disinherited middle-class sector – a class that was trained to wield power, but denied the opportunity to do so. Dissidents in Kashmir began with massive institutional support which garnered spontaneous approval and enthusiastic support from the people of the Kashmir valley (Baba, 2002). The state government’s initial inertia further aggravated the situation. However, the large-scale support enjoyed by dissident organizations during the initial years waned by the mid-1990s (Thomas, 2000). In addition, the cause of asserting the Kashmiri identity was hidden by Pakistan-sponsored Pan-Islamic propaganda, and the presence of foreign Jihadis added to the general public’s sense of dissociation from the entire movement.
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Onset of the Present Crisis The birth of organized militancy after 1987 in Kashmir marked the beginning of dissident control and coercion in the valley. Riding on popular support from the masses and with external assistance, the revolt changed form from turmoil to conspiracy – riots and strikes gave way to organized and well-planned terrorism and militants began targeting police patrols and stations, government and private buildings and government officials. The period of 1988–1990 was marked by massive unrest with the pro-independence Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) dominating the scene till 1992. Islamization of the movement resulted in selective killing of Pandits and resulted in their mass exodus in 1990 (Bose, 2003). The role of external support is important in the case of the Kashmiri Muslim uprising. The internal war conditions were maintained by Pakistan sending in more guns and India sending in more troops (Thomas, 2000). According to Wirsing (1994), Pakistan not only supplies substantial political, diplomatic and material support to the uprising but also plays a role in training, indoctrination, arming and cross-border movement. Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, the common people in Kashmir, were massacred in the struggle to gain power between the regime and the dissidents. Torture, abuse, rape, looting, arson, killings and other despicable means were used by both groups, thus eroding the community as a whole. This development marked the end of the unique syncretic culture and inclusivity of Kashmiriyat, a composite identity that referred to a shared communality without any reference to religious differences that marked the syncretic nature of religion in the valley (Hewitt, 2002). The political violence in Jammu and Kashmir has its roots in the acts of the political elites and the weaknesses of institutions, both in the bureaucracy and in party organizations. The breakdown of democracy in Kashmir was the result of a political climate characterized by party politics based on a single type of identity (such as language, religion, region and class) and other factors. This led to communal politics, communalism and the deterioration of political institutions. In 1987 the political situation had deteriorated such that political allegiances were defined and expressed in religious terms. Finally, in 1989, the political opposition gave up its belief in the usefulness of competing within what was left of the democratic framework. The causality of democratic breakdown and the outbreak of violent separatism in Jammu and Kashmir can be outlined as follows (Widmalm, 2002):
Political elite – Deinstitutionalization – Communalism – Violent Separatism
It was in this context that the most serious polarization of Hindus (a religious minority group in Jammu and Kashmir but a majority group elsewhere in India) and Muslims (a religious majority group in Jammu and Kashmir but a minority group in the rest of India) occurred. Therefore, the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir is the result of the power struggle between elites in the state and the central government,
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not because of the strong polarization on ethnic lines. One of the more important factors that led to the escalation of violence was the weak party organization of the National Conference and the Congress. The performance of political leaders also played a vital role in determining whether ethnic conflict broke out, thus the need to pay attention to the context, content and meaning of political campaigns and decisions, including such problematic concepts as populism. These seemingly ‘soft’ variables sometimes play a significant part in explaining why conflict breaks out at a certain point in time, suggesting that the extent or success of the advances made by separatists may also depend on the political environment, and decisions by leaders may trigger an unexpected spiral of violence. Organized violence should be seen as a political act, a strategy consciously utilized to obtain certain political goals, involving the state, political parties and their elites as independent influential factors that are not predetermined by the economic structure.
Explaining Violent Separatism In their preface on the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, Sharma and Mishra (1995) describe what they see as the nature of the dispute, ‘A striking cultural fact in the present Kashmir crisis is the absence of any ideological content among the militant groups in the valley. The Kashmir crisis is political in nature only at the surface, where at a deeper level it has much more to do with economic well being and cultural identity’. This quotation highlights three sets of explanatory variables that could be considered as causes of violent separatism in Jammu and Kashmir: cultural, socioeconomic and political. Of the three, perhaps the most vaguely defined, but currently the most intensely debated, are the cultural explanations. The following description is largely based on the role of ethnic factors in understanding violent separatism in Kashmir. Theories of conflict, violence and separatism that use culturally specific traits as explanatory components usually emphasize the role of ethnicity or ethnic factors. The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir is widely argued as being ethnic in nature and rooted in cultural differences. Despite this historical record, which shows that Kashmiri nationalism is different from Indian nationalism, violent separatism in Jammu and Kashmir was not predetermined, and democracy in Jammu and Kashmir could have survived. The history of the power relations of groups in the area certainly shaped political positions, but does not explain why violence spread in the late 1980s. Ethnic factors, the historical background or even the Pakistani intervention did not determine separatism. Nevertheless, the discontent which took the expression of separatism in violent forms was, however, mainly caused by an internal process. As democratic institutions were undermined, tension increased and large-scale violence was finally triggered by the kidnapping of Rubya Saeed in 1989. From this point onwards, the violence escalated, moderate voices were given less room for free expression and finally violence
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became self-perpetuating. Hindus and Muslims became polarized, and this polarization along ethnic lines was perceived to be the cause of the conflict, rather than a struggle between the elites in the government over power. Recent events in the region also show how political leaders are prone to justify their actions by pointing at the ‘ethnic factor’ as something out of their immediate control. Political leaders tend to claim they have to follow the ‘natural cause of events’ and portray their own roles as quite innocent. But when their actions are scrutinized, one can see how ethnicity on the international level, in the same way as on the national and state levels, is used as an instrument for power. Therefore, a debate on ethnicity and its role in violent conflicts and separatism becomes important.
The Ethnic Factor ‘Primordialism’ has often been used to denote the view of ethnic identity as ‘attachments derived from place of birth, kinship, relationships, religion, language and social practices’ – something that is primarily based on descent (Brass, 1991; Shils, 1957). These ‘core features’, said to be acquired through the process of enculturation early in life, persist through time and are sometimes claimed to provide the basis for understanding the rise and development of nations. Ethnic identity is described as a static feature, and this view, in modern political science and sociology, is traceable to Max Weber. A representative of the moderate position, Horowitz (1985), proposes that ‘internal dynamics’, which are typical of political parties based on ethnicity, are the main cause of violent conflicts. He also argues that ‘economic theories cannot explain the extent of the emotions invested in ethnic conflicts’, and takes issue with theories that see the economy as the main determinant in the rise of violent conflicts. Horowitz concludes that Economic interest may act either as an accelerator or a brake on separatism. Yet, among the most frequent and precocious secessionists – backward groups in backward regions – economic loss or gain plays the smallest role, ethnic anxiety the largest (p. 259).
Horowitz assumes that ethnic party competition is more conflict prone than other forms of party competition. Other writers also propose that ethnic sentiments are charged with stronger emotions than other aspects of human identity (Walzer, 1980). Connor (1993, 1994) has argued that ethnonationalism and genocide are caused by a non-rational core of the nation which provides unique ‘emotional well-springs’ that make people willing to die and kill in the name of the nation. To support his theory, Connor refers to a number of ethnonationalist movements that have caused widespread suffering, and he links his argument to Freud’s attempts to grasp the ‘emotional source of national identity’. This view is consistent with the opinion that Kashmiris are Muslim and therefore will never be loyal to India. On the instrumentalist side, there have been studies of the way the political elite manipulates ethnic identity as a tool in conflicts with other elites. Elites cleverly
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exploit symbolic cultural values regarded as essential to the process of political mobilization. Old values are given new or different meanings and history rewritten to suit the political goals of the particular moment (Brass, 1991; Hobsbawm, 1990). The so-called core features of ethnic identity are recognized as important, but the instrumentalist adds that, in spite of inheritance, ethnic identity and its meaning change over time. Brass (1991) summarizes these views clearly: Consequently, whether or not the culture of the group is ancient or is newly-fashioned, the study of ethnicity and nationality is in large part the study of politically-induced cultural change. More precisely, it is the study of the process by which elites and counter-elites within ethnic groups select aspects of the group’s culture, attach new value and meaning to them, and use them as symbols to mobilize the group, to defend its interests, and to compete with other groups (p. 75).
But the Jammu and Kashmir representatives from the different ethnic groups have been able to cooperate at times in spite of a conflict-ridden past, suggesting similarity in the role of ethnicity in politics and conflict to that of class. An understanding of class and ethnicity as sociopolitical constructions allows us to be less prejudiced (Przeworski, 1985). Consequently, ethnic politics does not have to be portrayed as something uniquely different from class politics. But others have argued that ethnic politics is different because it is characterized by zero-sum games. But zero-sum games in ethnic politics have mirror images in class politics. Both class and ethnic politics at times can be uncompromising, but compromise is also possible. Therefore, it can be concluded that when political competition is a zero-sum game, the outcome is not necessarily decided by whether or not the issue is related to class or ethnicity (Widmalm, 2002). The case of Jammu and Kashmir has demonstrated that class and ethnicity are different in kind in the way they affect political outcomes. An appeal to an established ethnic identity may be more effective in arousing political awareness than class, which often has to be taught. The existence in most societies of geographical segregation according to ethnicity further makes ethnic identity a more practical vehicle for separatism than class. But these differences do not necessarily enable us to predict the outcomes of political conflicts and power struggles. Therefore, the Kashmir conflict must not necessarily be seen as a zero-sum game even if this is what is suggested by some of the main political actors. There are political forces, even in this conflict, that are willing to both negotiate and make compromises. Irrespective of group or class, many have been caught in the Kashmir conflict. The violence has precipitated a humanitarian crisis of tragic magnitude, causing untold damage to people’s psychological, emotional, social, economic and educational well-being. While the political complexities of the conflict are the subject of high-level dialogue and discussion, the suffering and anguish of thousands of victims of violence have been largely ignored. The following section briefly explores the psychosocial impact of violence on the people of Kashmir.
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Violence and Human Suffering Militant violence and the ‘legitimate’ state violence needed to contain the terrorism have extracted a terrible cost in terms of human suffering and destruction. No family or village or town has been spared from the violence. Upwards of 80,000 people have been killed, mostly the young, aged between 15 and 35 years. Though no authentic data are available in Kashmir as to how many women have become widows and how many children orphaned, rough estimates suggest that over 25,000 women have become widows while 40,000 children orphaned. Ethnic cleansing and communal hostility have forced more than 300,000 people to flee their homes in the valley and live dislocated lives as refugees in other parts of the country. Since the outbreak of hostilities in 1989, Jammu and Kashmir has experienced a significant rise in cases of psychological disorders, including depression; recurrent, intrusive and distressing recollection of events; irritability and outbursts of anger; difficulty in concentrating; insomnia; persistent sadness; poor mental health and coping and disinterest in social activities (Marghoob, 1996; Khan & Ghilzai, 2002). In 1980, 8–10 patients per year on an average visited the Government Hospital for the treatment of depression, but the number rose to 18,000 in 1994 and 48,000 in 2003 (Jeelani, 2002). Routine deaths, hostile encounters, crossfires, grenade blasts and search-and-cordon operations have given rise to extreme fear in the community (Dabla, 1999). Doctors believe that only about 10% of those in need of psychiatric care are actually seeking help in the hospitals because of the social stigma associated with psychological disorders. The increase in psychological trauma has ripped apart the social fabric in the valley, resulting in an increased number of suicides in Kashmir. At least 20% of depressed people attempted suicide, with incidence of suicides being higher in women than in men (Dabla, 2001; Kak, 2000). Widows are particularly vulnerable, with 80% experiencing high suicidal tendencies after their husbands’ death and family breakup (Meraj, 2004). The turmoil in Kashmir has made many women widows and ‘half-widows’ (husbands who have gone missing or simply disappeared). Dardpora, a village in Kupwara, has come to be known as the village of widows, as most of the women in this small hamlet have lost their husbands, most of whom were militants (Suri, 2007). Widows suffered on various accounts: most have been thrown out of their inlaws’s houses who kept the ex gratia relief; they live on their own or have moved in with their parents supporting three to six children on average; many are unemployed, supported by relatives, parents, in-laws, neighbours, nongovernmental organization (NGOs), meagre government relief, part-time business, agriculture activities and so on. Dabla, Nayak, and Islam-ul (2000) highlighted a major crisis in Kashmir’s marriage market in recent years, as parents could not find eligible and qualified grooms for their daughters. Before the rise of militancy, women traditionally married in their early or middle twenties, but now many girls are unmarried. Delayed marriages have resulted in increased stress and a rise in congenital disorders, particularly Down syndrome, associated with the higher age of the mother at childbirth (Bukhari,
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2002). Sexual abuse is another offshoot of militant violence and has led to the moral degradation of Kashmiri society. Family environment has deteriorated with negative impact on children’s personality growth (Suri, 2007). Kashmiri children are insecure, absent minded, emotionally unstable, have low self-esteem, pessimistic and poor communication skills, symptoms of emotional tension, insecurity and fear psychosis due to the current violence. Orphans, neglected and destitute children, as direct victims of violence, are more prone to these abnormalities (Dabla, 1999). Due to continued violence, many Kashmiri Pandit Hindus have migrated from the valley and settled in the Jammu region or other parts of India, causing a number of psychological and behavioural problems in this population. While the majority suffered from stress, unhealthy coping, transitory and situational maladjustment problems, acute anxiety, neurotic depression, hysterical reactions, etc. a few also showed initial phases of psychotic reactions (Dabla, 2001; Sharma & Khan, 2002). These victims of political conflict must be helped. Local sociologists believe that if immediate steps are not taken at government and nongovernment level to erect a support system, the whole of Kashmiri society may be irreversibly criminalized within the next decade.
Conflict Transformation and Indo-Pak Peace Process The competing identities of states and groups in the Kashmir dispute are important not only in capturing the roots of the conflict, but also in shaping the prospects for conflict resolution. The international community needs to consider that the main factors affecting conflict resolution may be internal to both India and Pakistan and to Kashmir itself. New situations can be created in the dynamics of conflict with or without intervention of external influence. Issues, perceptions, relationships and communication patterns continue to change as the dynamics of conflict themselves change. Conflict structure can be transformed by focusing on long-term relationships rather than immediate concerns. Subjective and objective contexts for a constructive transformation of conflicts can be changed by a shift in power relations and attitudes. Conflict situations need to be transformed so that support structures that tend to consolidate peace can be identified (Boutros-Ghali, 1992). Positive opportunities can be enhanced through awareness of mutual dependence. Resolving the issues requires the replacement of violent tactics with nonviolent actions. Given the multifaceted challenges posed by Kashmir, attempts to tackle them will require an innovative and multidimensional approach. There has been a series of impressive initiatives to deal with the Kashmir issue in the recent past by international, national, sub-national and even nonstate actors. The last category includes a number of NGOs and thinktanks mostly based in the West. There is good reason to be sceptical in resolving the Kashmir conflict for years of sporadic attempts at peace have been interspersed with bouts of turmoil
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and domestic political volatility (Fair, 2005). But the Indo-Pak peace process was formally resumed on January 2004 in the form of a ‘composite dialogue’ where then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf expressed confidence ‘that the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides’ (India Pakistan Joint Statement, 2004). By mid-2005, some tangible developments provided grounds for optimism; India and Pakistan ended their long-standing and costly military standoff on the Siachen Glacier in Jammu and Kashmir. Level of infiltration by militants coming across LOC into Jammu and Kashmir also dropped significantly, and the most striking display of the new cooperative spirit was the April 2005 start of a regular bus service connecting the summer capital of Srinagar to Muzaffarabad. A major milestone in the process of rapprochement was a proposal forwarded by President Musharraf in December 2005, stating that Pakistan would be willing to reconsider its claim to Kashmir if India agreed to a self-government plan for the disputed Himalayan region. His ‘four-point solution’ to the Kashmir dispute included (i) a gradual withdrawal of troops, (ii) self-governance, (iii) no changes to the region’s borders and free movement over the LOC, and (iv) a joint supervision/management mechanism. Since 2004 both countries have been engaged in a multi-track process encompassing confidence-building measures and a composite dialogue which has helped to reduce tension, even if the process is still fragile and the post-2004 trend could still reverse itself. The improved relations between the two countries and the conducive international environment have provided a unique opportunity that must be seized to resolve the Kashmir dispute and ensure a bright future of cooperation, understanding and prosperity in South Asia. Strategies for transforming conflict dynamics cannot simply rely on the assumption that improved communication and changed perceptions would put parties on an equal basis. To initiate conflict de-escalation, the psychological dimensions of adversarial relationships must change together with the need to understand different views (Mitchell, 1999). Newly forged relationships have to be supported by structural transformation of social conditions. In a transformative framework, identity and power relations continue to be re-negotiated in an ongoing process (Jeong & Vayrynen, 1999). From this perspective, roles and relationships have to be redesigned to restructure the patterns of transactions and interactions. Conflict transformation can underscore the goal of peacebuilding by empowering a marginalized population exposed to extreme vulnerability to achieve self-sufficiency and wellbeing (Jeong, 1999). In doing so, a successful conflict transformation can contribute to eliminating structural violence. Peacebuilding is largely equated with the construction of a new social environment that advances a sense of confidence and improves the quality of life. In a situation of power imbalance, the promotion of peace requires a social basis for the autonomy, participation and solidarity of the marginalized. Reviving indigenous cultural, social and political forces is essential to expanding democratic social space. Social change for promoting justice is an appropriate means for peacebuilding.
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Peace Strategy: Peacemaking and Peacebuilding Peace implies many different things to many different people. Since the Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Ghali (1992), published the Agenda for Peace, the terms peacekeeping, peacemaking and peacebuilding have become wellknown as strategies of conflict intervention. These three strategies form a general theory of maintaining peace, that is ‘keeping the opponents apart, negotiating a political solution and finally, tying the adversaries into something that one could call a peace system’ (Galtung, 1982, p. 8). Galtung (1996) defines peacekeeping as (to): ‘control the actors so that they at least stop destroying things, others, and themselves’ (p. 103). Peacemaking ‘is concerned with the search for a negotiated resolution of the perceived conflicts of interests between the parties’ (Ryan, 1995, p. 106), and its activities include bringing together groups or individuals in dialogue about possible resolution of the conflict. This can occur at the diplomatic level or between ordinary citizens caught in the conflict. Peacebuilding ‘is the strategy which most directly tries to reverse those destructive processes that accompany violence’ (Ryan, 1995, p. 129), where ‘dialogue’ may be used to find a solution to the conflict and to foster understanding between the conflicting groups (Schweitzer, 2001). The three strategies need to be applied simultaneously. Peacekeeping without peacemaking and peacebuilding would be difficult because the violence might overwhelm the process, and any group wishing to sabotage the process would find it easy to provoke armed clashes. If peacebuilding is ineffective, the decision-makers might lose the support of their communities, and if peacemaking is ineffective, the perceived disagreement that caused the conflict will remain unresolved, with a high probability that violence will resume (Schweitzer, 2001). The three strategies are not per se nonviolent; they may include coercion-like mediation with muscle or military peacekeeping. On the other side, all nonviolent methods can easily be related to one or more of the strategies (Lederach, 2007). Ryan distinguishes three methods of peacekeeping as the imposition of solution through violence and powers, law and negotiation (classical mediation or second-track diplomacy). Peacebuilding is the grand strategy because ordinary people are included in the peace process. There are many examples of peace processes that have failed because there was no peacebuilding. Peacebuilding activities include many different tasks; one major aspect is an encounter between opponents, having a goal of removal of distrust and hatred and making it possible for former enemies to live together (Galtung, 1992, 1996). Ryan emphasizes that contact alone might not reduce prejudice and tension and distinguishes seven sub-categories of peacebuilding that combine contact with something else, including forgiveness, the pursuit of superordinate goals, economic development, confidence building, education for mutual understanding, prejudice reduction and exploring cultures. In the case of Jammu and Kashmir, confidence-building measures (CBMs) are required to catalyse both public support and leadership interest in the peace process. CBMs should include support for improving the accountability of the police and the
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bureaucracy, inviting civil society leaders into the peace process, efforts to ensure fair play in elections and infrastructure development programmes, among others. These measures have to be analysed on a daily basis, to document the public mood and to generate advice and direction on the basis of these observations. Every step of implementation needs to build on previous steps, and close scrutiny is required before taking the next step. Civil society institutions have survived amid the gun culture and militancy that have overtaken life in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. They have been remarkably successful in maintaining high ethical standards and in sustaining the electoral process in selecting their leaders. These civil society leaders and their organizations are the soul of the Kashmiri population; these individuals need to be part of the peace process even if the confusion among the political parties continues. The election process for the majority of civil society keeps hope alive that the infrastructure for the democratic process still continues and is well accepted by the people in Jammu and Kashmir, including in the politically charged and militancy-wrecked Kashmir valley. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that an extraordinary opportunity has arisen in addressing the Kashmir conflict since 2004. Of course, conflict resolution processes tend to go through stages including creating a space for cooperation, working towards a settlement, implementation of the settlement and active monitoring and consolidation of the settlement. Despite the positive developments, the disputants in Jammu and Kashmir, Azad Kashmir (Pakistan occupied) India, and Pakistan are still working on the first stage and are just planning for the second. Even if conditions have combined to create this opportunity, the road to peace is likely to be long and the process complex. Lederach’s (1997) model of peacebuilding is briefly described and, if followed, may help in achieving a more viable and sustainable peace in the Indian subcontinent. Lederach distinguishes between three levels of society, and for peacebuilding to be successful, intervention must reach all three. Lederach conceives of leadership in a population affected by a conflict in terms of a pyramid. On one side of the pyramid are the types of leaders and the sectors from which they come, for example level 1 top leadership (i.e. military/political/religious leaders with high visibility), level 2 middle-range leadership (i.e. leaders respected in sectors, ethnic/religious leaders, academics/intellectuals, humanitarian leaders and NGOs) and level 3 grassroots leadership (i.e. local leaders, leaders of indigenous NGOs, community developers, local health officials and refugee camp leaders). On the other side are the conflict transformation activities that the leaders at each level may undertake and approaches to peacebuilding. Approaches to peacebuilding correspond to the three levels of leadership; the first level focuses on high-level negotiations, emphasis on cease fire and led by highly visible single personality; the second level includes problem-solving workshops, training in conflict resolution, peace commissions and insider-partial teams. The third level of leadership emphasizes on local peace commission, grassroots training, prejudice reduction, psychosocial work in postwar and trauma. The pinnacle, or toplevel leadership, represents the fewest people, in some cases perhaps only a handful
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of key actors. The base of the pyramid encompasses the largest number of people and represents the population at large. The middle range holds the potential for helping to establish a relationship- and skill-based infrastructure for sustaining the peacebuilding process. A middle-out approach builds on the idea that the middle-range leaders can be cultivated to play an instrumental role in working through the conflicts. Middle-range peacebuilding activities ranged from efforts directed at changing perceptions and floating new ideas among actors proximate to the policymaking process to training in conflict resolution skills and establishment of teams, networks and institutions that can play an active conciliation role within the setting. Grassroots approaches face different challenges from those confronting the top and middle-range levels. First, at this level is the massive number of people. At best, strategies can be implemented to touch the leadership working at local and community levels, but more often than not, these strategies represent points of contact with the masses rather than a comprehensive programme for reaching them. There is a range of options for a possible political settlement, but clearly these involve addressing several dimensions separately, yet in an integrated and holistic manner. Peacebuilding attempts, in order to promote sustainable peace, need to address not only the distribution of resources, but also the opportunities shaped by social and political institutions and relationships. In this process, principles of democratic participation, human rights and gender equality are crucial elements. A three-tier effort is needed, including individuals, society and the state. All need to coordinate, organize and implement relevant programmes for the betterment of women and children. The Jammu and Kashmir government initiated a major step towards improving women’s lives by promoting their participation in the electoral process through the reservation of seats in the February–March 2005 civic bodies elections. But policymakers and governments need to take more steps to support women’s participation in peacebuilding by strengthening their representation in local, national and international bodies. Much more could be done in creating economic opportunities in the rehabilitation of the thousands of widows and orphaned children across Jammu and Kashmir. NGOs also need to be more involved and take serious initiatives in this regard. Involvement of grassroots functionaries and NGOs would help shape a community approach to tackle these problems. By aman or ‘peace’, we mean not just the absence of physical violence, but a system based on social security, equal opportunities, access to resources, distribution, economic rights and accountability; a welfare state, a literate, developed and childwelfare-oriented society; and a society where there is social justice, progress and development for all groups. This is ‘positive peace’, which encompasses a vision of what society should be. It requires not only that all types of violence are minimal or nonexistent but also that the major potential causes of future conflict are removed. In other words, the root causes and major conflicts of interest as well as their violent manifestation need to be resolved. The resolution of the Kashmir dispute itself could go a long way towards minimizing all these problems. However, a shift in the old paradigm to move away from land-centric solutions to people-centric solutions has to be made. The people of Jammu and Kashmir on both
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sides of the LOC should decide what is best for them. In the process the emphasis is moved from focusing on maps and divisions to focusing on people issues involving quality of life and personal empowerment. In the words of a famous American, the honorable Tip O’Neill, ‘All politics is local’. While concluding this chapter, taking note of ‘major and significant developments’ in the Indo-Pak ties, former US President George Bush has said that the Kashmir issue is ‘ripe’ for solution. At the same time there are headlines in the media: ‘LOC rocked by heavy firing again; attack comes just ahead of India-Pakistan peace talks’ (The Times of India, 2008). Just before that statement, then Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chhaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said that Pakistan did not want another war with India over Kashmir and described the current status of bilateral relations as the ‘best’ the two countries ever had. Seeking the right formula for peace in Kashmir is not exogenous to the diplomatic, political, economic and ultimately social interaction among India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris. Both countries must beware of finding themselves on opposite sides of an Asian balance of power struggle. Both need to cooperate in curbing nuclear risks and in limiting the siren song of excessive nationalism. All this is easier to do as the rivalry in Kashmir fades in light of new objectives. The well-being of the Kashmiri people may yet be served by new approaches and new voices in Srinagar, New Delhi and Islamabad. It will be a fortunate day for them when neither capital cares passionately about their land.
References Baba, N. A. (2002). Origins and dimensions of crisis in Kashmir. In S. Prakash & G. M. Shah (Eds.), Towards understanding the Kashmir crisis (pp. 51–60). New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. Bose, S. (1997). The challenge in Kashmir: Democracy, self-determination and a just peace. New Delhi: Sage. Bose, S. (2003). Kashmir: Roots of conflict, paths to peace. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Boutros-Ghali. B. (1992, June). An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Diplomacy, Peacemaking and Peacekeeping Document A/47/277 – S/241111, 17. New York: Department of Public Information, United Nations. http://www.un.org/Docs/SG/agpeace.html Brass, P. (1991) Ethnicity and nationalism: Theory and comparison, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Bukhari, F. (2002). Dying day by day:Talking stock of mental and social health in Kashmir. Himal Magezine (on line). Available from: http//www.himalmag.com/200/november/report.htm Chopra, S. (1988). Post-Simla Indo–Pak relations: Confrontation to de-escalation. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications. Connor, W. (1993). Beyond reason: The nature of ethnonational bond. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 16, 373–389. Connor, W. (1994). Ethnonationalism: The quest of understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Dabla, B. A. (1999, June). Impact of conflict situation on women and children in Kashmir. North West India: Save the Children Fund. Dabla, B. A. (2001). Suicides in the Kashmir valley. New Hope Journal (Kashmir Foundation for hope and peace, Srinagar), 2, March–April issue. Dabla, B. A., Nayak, S., & Islam-ul, K. (2000). Gender discrimination in the Kashmir Valley. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House.
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Dawson, P. (1995). The peacekeepers of Kashmir: The UN military observer group in India and Pakistan. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. Fair, C. (2005). India and Pakistan engagement: Prospects for breakthrough or breakdown. United States Institute of Peace Special Report. Galtung, J. (1982). Anders verteidigen. Beiträge zur Friedens- und Konfliktforschung 2, Reinbek B. Hamburg:rowohlt. Galtung, J. (1992). Violence, peace and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6, 166–192. Galtung, J. (1996). Peace by peaceful means: Peace and conflict, development and civilization. London: Sage Publications. Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs Annual Report 2004–2005, p. 19 & Annexure-II, pp. 164. Gurr. T. R. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gurr, T. R. (1980). Handbook of political conflict: Theory and research. New York: Free Press. Hewitt, V. (2002). An area of darkness, still? The political evolution of ethnic identities in Jammu and Kashmir, 1947–2001. In S. Fenton & S. May (Eds.), Ethnonational identities (pp. 129–158). London: Palgrave MacMillan. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780: Programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Canto-Cambridge University Press. Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. India-Pakistan Joint Press Statement Islamabad. (2004, January 9). Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, http://164.100.17.21/speech/2004/01/06ss01.htm. Jeelani, A. (2002). Turmoil and Trauma, Voices Unheard: A Newsletter of Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament. Jeong, H. (1999). Research on conflict resolution. In H. Jeong (Ed.), Conflict resolution: Dynamics, process and structure (pp. 3–34). Ashgate: Aldershop. Jeong, H., & Vayrynen, T. (1999). Identity formation and reconstruction. In H. Jeong (Ed.) Conflict resolution (pp. 59–78). Ashgate: Aldershop. Jha, P. S. (1996). Kashmir 1947: Rival versions of history. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kadian, R. (1992). The Kashmir tangle: Issues and options. New Delhi: Vision Books. Kak, M. L. (2000, September 27). More women choose death in Jammu and Kashmir. The Tribune, Chandigarh, India (on line edition). Khan, W., & Ghilzai, S. (2002). Impact of terrorism on mental health and coping mechanisms of adolescents and adults in Kashmir. Journal of Personality & Clinical Studies, 18, 33–41. Lederach, J. P. (1997). Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press. Lederach, J. P. (2007, November 19). Scope of conflict interventions: An overview of peace strategies. Nonviolent Peaceforce, Brussels. Marghoob, M. A.(1996). The Pattern of child Psychiatric disorders in Kashmir. J. K. Practitioner, 3, 233–236. Meraj, A. (2004, November 18). Indian held Kashmir : 80% war widows have suicidal tendencies. Sada-e-Aman-Voice of Peace (E Journal),3 ,2 , p.2. Mitchell, C. R. (1999). The anatomy of de-escalation. In H. Jeong (Ed.), Conflict resolution: Dynamics, process and structure (pp. 37–58). Ashgate: Aldershop. Prakash, S. (2002). The Kashmir issue today and during the formative years of the Indian states system. In S. Prakash & G. M. Shah (Eds.), Towards understanding the Kashmir crisis. (pp. 109–122). New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. Przeworski, A. (1985). Capitalism and social democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Puri, B. (1993). Kashmir towards insurgency. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Puri, B. (2002). Understanding the Kashmir problem: The beginning of the present phase. In S. Prakash & G. M. Shah (Eds.), Toward understanding the Kashmir crisis (pp.135–140). New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House. Ryan, S. (1995). Ethnic conflict and international relations (2nd ed.). Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd.
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Schweitzer, C. (2001). Putting nonviolent peaceforce into the picture. Nonviolent peaceforce feasibility study (pp. 8–47). Nonviolent Peaceforce: Hamburg, Germany. Sharma, S., & Khan, W. (2002). Stress, mental health and coping among Kashmiri migrants. Unpublished Masters Dissertation, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Sharma, S. & Mishra, Y. (1995). Kashmir tourism to terrorism. Delhi: Sage Publications. Shils, E. (1957). Primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties. British Journal of Sociology, 8, 130–145. Singh, P. P. (1989). Political violence in India. Delhi: Amar Prakashan. Suri, K. (2007). Women in the valley: From victims to agents of change. In W. P. S Sidhu, B. Asif, & C. Samii (Eds.), Kashmir: New voices, new approaches (pp. 81–95). New Delhi: Viva Books Pvt. Ltd. The Times of India. (2008, May 20). New Delhi. Thomas, R. G. C. (1992). Perspectives on Kashmir: The roots of conflict in South Asia. Boulder: Westview Press. Thomas, R. G. C. (2000). Faultline Kashmir. Middlesex: Brunel Academic Publishers Ltd. Verma, P. S. (1994). Jammu and Kashmir at the political crossroads. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Walzer, M. (1980). Radical principles. New York: Basic Books. Wani, G. M. (1993). Kashmir politics: problems and prospects. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House. Widmalm, S. (2002). Kashmir in comparative perspective: Democracy and violent separatism in India. London: Routledge Curzon. Wirsing, R. G. (1994). India, Pakistan and the Kashmir dispute. London: Macmillan.
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Part III
Southeast Asia
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Peace Psychology of Grassroots Reconciliation: Lessons Learned from the “Baku Bae” Peace Movement Hamdi Muluk and Ichsan Malik
This chapter is based on four years of effort in resolving the Maluku conflict, known as the worst intercommunal violence in Indonesia, which continued from early 1999 until 2003. This conflict took place in the eastern Indonesian island province known as Maluku (also called the Mollucas in English). In the first section of this chapter, we present an overview of the Maluku conflict: its history, causes, and the conflict resolution effort that had been undertaken. The second part describes in detail the Baku Bae Peace Movement: its stages and processes. In the final section we conclude this case study in light of the literature in peace psychology.
Overview of the Maluku Conflict Before it was divided into two provinces (Maluku and North Maluku), Maluku was the largest province in Indonesia, covering over 850,000 square kilometers, 90% of which is maritime, and consisting of over 2,000 islands. Based on the year 2000 census, the population of Maluku was estimated to be around 1.15 million, which was almost evenly split between Muslims (49.1%) and Christians (50.2%), most of whom are Protestants. After separating into a new province, North Maluku has a population of around 670,000, of which more than 85% are Muslims (Brown, Wilson, & Hadi, 2005). The two provinces have been plagued by serious intercommunal violence since January 1999, with the most serious incidents happening on the island of Ambon and in Ambon City, the capital of Maluku. Indeed, in Indonesia, this conflict is more popularly known as the Ambon tragedy. The Maluku conflict began on January 19, 1999, with a fight between an Ambonese Christian bus driver and an immigrant Bugis Muslim passenger. This event spurred two months of intercommunal violence in and around Ambon, resulting in the death of around a thousand people and internal displacements due to the burning of villages by the conflicting parties. Violence continued until January 2000 and even intensified in other parts of the province. At that time, many areas of Maluku, especially Ambon, had been effectively divided into Christian and Muslim zones. C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_5, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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Between January 15 and 17, a few days before the outbreak of violence in Ambon City, the Christian and Muslim communities had clashed in Dobo Island, in the Southeast Maluku regency. This conflict was triggered by local Christian attacks on Muslim migrants from Sulawesi who were recognized as a hardworking community. The attacks eventually developed into a riot. Indeed, the local security apparatus had been unable to control the situation and needed to request support from the capital city, Ambon. The provincial police headquarters in Ambon responded by sending a mobile brigade police on January 19, just hours before the bigger violence broke out in Ambon City. The January 19 riots in Ambon City coincided with the Muslim celebrations of Idul Fitri following the fasting month of Ramadan (Panggabean, 2004; Lessy, 2005). As the government turned the focus of its attention toward stopping the Dobo conflict, Ambon City was left ill-equipped to prevent the Ambon riot. Hence, it lacked the necessary mechanisms to prevent further deaths and injuries following the riots. Furthermore, what was initially considered to be a quarrel between indigenous Ambonese and migrants was quickly framed in religious terms. Attacks and counterattacks were directed to the burning of churches and mosques or community villages identified as Muslim or Christian. On January 19, the tensions spread throughout the neighborhood of Ambon City and, on the following days, to the other Maluku provinces. After a temporary halt due to the national elections, the riots resumed in July and continued until the early part of 2000. The conflict in Ambon City and its surroundings in 1999 resulted in 8,000 people being killed as well as around 500,000 people being forced to flee from their homes. After the violent conflict in Ambon City, the violence spread to Central Maluku toward the end of February 1999, although the number of deaths and injured people was much lower than that in Ambon City. The months following February were reported to be filled with intermittent conflict and violence around the Maluku province. As the violence continued and entered into a new phase in the year 2000, the conflict in Maluku province, especially in Ambon City, became more “weaponized,” as handmade guns and bombs were quickly distributed among civilians (Panggabean, 2004). As the conflict became more like a war due to the use of weapons, the response from security forces, especially the local police, was slow as even they were trapped in the conflict. The situation deteriorated when the “contaminated” security forces not only became active in fighting against their enemies based on ethnic, religious, and communal ties, but also trained civilians as militias (e.g., training them how to make bombs and teaching them military tactics). In this second phase the conflict was characterized by the greater involvement of security forces from both sides as well as by the influx of Muslims from places outside of Maluku, especially from Java, under the support of a newly formed militant Muslim organization, the Laskar Jihad. In response to this situation, the government placed Maluku under Civilian Emergency status in June 2000 and deployed thousands of army and police groups in the province (Brown et al., 2005). Even though some of the officers deployed were not
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neutral in this conflict, the presence of the military forces appeared effective as violence gradually subsided in the year 2002.
Causes of Conflict The Maluku conflict can be categorized as a high-intensity intergroup conflict that can lead into ethnopolitical warfare. In this case, the conflicting parties can be identified as ethnic, religious, and communal groups at the same time, although there was the tendency for the segregated groups to become polarized into Muslim and Christian groups. Within Indonesia’s modern history, the Maluku conflict can be considered as the biggest and worst intergroup conflict that has ever happened in Indonesia. Our analysis concerning the causes of the Maluku conflict revealed several factors that contributed to the emergence of the conflict. First, deriving from historical roots, the people of Maluku were known for their involvement in the spice trade around the year 1600. Due to this, the Dutch tried to conquer the Maluku Island using different methods. One of these methods included the policy of divide et impera (divide and rule), an ideology through which the Dutch tried to break the unity of the local communities by supporting one side while discriminating against the other. Before the Dutch came to this island, the Portuguese had colonized the northern part of Maluku (Ternate Island). At that time, the island of Ternate was ruled by a Muslim king known as Sultan Ternate. Sultan Ternate wanted to expel the Portuguese during that time, and the Dutch, who were the competitors of the Portuguese then, offered to help the Sultan in driving out the Portuguese. However, this offer of help turned out to be a Trojan horse, and it was not long before the Dutch started to control Ternate Island. Besides monopolizing trade, the Dutch also undertook missionary activities on the island of Maluku by spreading the Protestant message to the indigenous people who had already embraced Catholicism or Islam. The Dutch also succeeded in Christianizing the indigenous people of Maluku who had previously embraced no religion. As the Dutch undertook the above missions, the ideology of divide et impera (divide and rule) worked perfectly in dividing the people of Maluku. To some extent, the religion-based divisions of the community can be attributed to these Dutch policies. For centuries, Muslims and Christians had lived in separate negeri (villages), each led by their “king” known as Raja or Latupati (Cooley, 1962). Given this reality, the peaceful and harmonious coexistence between the two groups appeared to be fragile. During the colonial period, local conflicts between Christians and Muslims occasionally occurred (e.g., Banda War in 1609–1621; Kapaha War in 1636–1646). Given that harmonious and peaceful coexistence was necessary for the different communities, the traditional mechanism of Pela-Gandong was established to maintain peaceful conditions. Pela-Gandong is an oath of allegiance that ties together two villages—either two Muslim communities or one Christian village with one Muslim village—in a relationship of mutual help and defense. This
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traditional mechanism was especially common in Central Maluku, but its spirit can also be found in North Maluku. It proved to balance out the divide et impera spirit introduced by the Dutch for centuries and continued to be used even after Indonesia gained its independence from the Dutch. The traditional Maluku system of village governance was replaced by the central government in 1979 with the introduction of the Javanese system of desa (administrative villages) along with the elections of the kepala desa (village headman). Consequently, the collapse of the traditional structure during the two decades prior to the 1999 conflict also destroyed traditional forms of social cohesion (the PelaGandong system) that prevented or mitigated horizontal conflict. The second factor that underlies the Maluku conflict can be traced to structural inequalities. Due to the changes in the political structure after the Dutch colonialism, the Christian community had lost its privileges and advantages in the political, social, and economic spheres, which were anchored in the Dutch politics of divide et impera. Their resentments were further fueled by the fact that most of the redistribution of economic and political power was addressed toward migrants from Java and Sulawesi. In the mid-1990s, Suharto’s central political decision known as greening (Islamization) resulted in the appointment of the first native Malukan as the first governor of Maluku. He also appointed Muslims to key positions throughout the districts of Maluku, thereby leaving the Christians with very little control over top positions (Brown et al., 2005). Prior to the conflict, this political inequality was further demonstrated in the economic imbalance between religious and migrant groups, as most of the strategic business sector was dominated by Muslims and migrant groups. The concentration of the Christian–Muslim population and their economic–political imbalance also vary across Maluku province. In some regions, the population may be composed of more Christians, but the economic sector is dominated by Muslims. Similarly, in other regions, Christians may dominate the elite structure, but Muslims may continue to control the economic spheres. Psychologically, such structural inequalities evoke intergroup resentments, which in turn can lead to eruptions of social unrest. One of Suharto’s legacies concerning intergroup relations in Indonesia is the politics of SARA (Suku, Agama, Ras, dan Antar-Golongan or ethnicity, religion, race, and intergroup relations). With these rules, the expression of ethnicity, religion, and interests was suppressed as they were considered to be a threat to nationalism, which is associated with the central government (Jakarta). During Suharto’s term, all intergroup conflicts were resolved through a military approach, a situation that restricted the ability of the different communities to resolve their own problems. Furthermore, the regional and communal structure had been destroyed by the introduction of measures that put forward the unification of local administration systems, an initiative that was supported by the government in Jakarta. A third factor that might have contributed to the Ambon conflict appears to be rooted in the economic crisis that occurred in the early years following the downfall of Suharto. The economic crisis that hit Indonesia in 1997 also seems to have affected the communal groups in Maluku. In the context of increasing competition between ethnic groups (involving migrant groups from outside of Maluku) and
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religious groups in pursuit of economic resources, it is reasonable to surmise that the economic crisis contributed to the intensification of the previous tensions. Following the fall of Suharto due to the economic crisis, the new transitional administration under President B. J. Habibie tried to open the door for democratization and decentralization. The implementation of this policy was undertaken under Abdurrahman Wahid’s presidency. This fundamental structural shift from the deepest structures of the Indonesian state indirectly served as an important proximate cause of conflict in Maluku. This condition created political, social, and economic uncertainties that contributed to the conflict. Furthermore, with the decrease of central military influence due to these changes, uncertainties regarding the future of the military’s role in politics can also be seen as an important factor in explaining the Maluku conflict. A fifth factor that served as an immediate cause or as triggering factors of the conflict pertains to some provocateurs, who given their political backing sought to instill unrest in the province. In the days preceding the escalation of the conflict, some of Ambon’s criminals in Jakarta were mobilized in the Maluku province. This mobilization was linked to a rivalry between the incumbent governor (a Muslim) and a challenger (a Christian). On the other hand, Suharto’s cronies (particularly in the army) continued to seek ways to return to politics. Human Rights Watch1 reported three broad conspiracy hypotheses regarding the causes behind the conflict. First, the conflict was believed to be provoked by factions within the military and national elite who tried to destabilize the democratization process in order to allow the military to come back to political power in Indonesia. Second, the conflict was provoked by Christians who sought to restore their local dominance by supporting the separatist movement, RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan or South Republic of Maluku Movement), as well as by attacking the Muslim migrants. Third, certain local military officers also mobilized the RMS, with the intention of benefiting from the expected Muslim backlash. As the backlash was expected to create destabilization, the army would come to save the nation and therefore regain its political power.
Conflict Resolution Efforts Several efforts were made in response to the “Maluku war.” Some of these failed, while some others succeeded. Ironically, most of the failed efforts were government responses. The conflict first erupted in 1999, at the time when Indonesia was under the era of Habibie’s presidency. The response from the central government was deemed too late, because the Jakarta administration was undergoing a transition following Suharto’s resignation. Some of the problems that the Habibie administration had to face included the worsening sociopolitical and economic situation, the independence of East Timor, and the Aceh and Papua conflicts. Although belated, 1 See the Human Rights Watch “Indonesia: The violence in Ambon” (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), p. 6.
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the government response in the form of military security efforts was indeed effective in halting the weaponized war in Maluku. However, the security response alone was not enough to resolve the conflict in its entirety, as postconflict termination approaches, such as reconciliation, were needed. Hence, without such serious efforts in involving the conflicting parties to resolve their own problems through dialogue and negotiation, sending the military troops appeared to be a mistake in some cases as they were also often biased in dealing with rioters, especially in Ambon City. With the entry of the Laskar Jihad (a fundamentalist Islamic militia) from outside Maluku, the conflict continued to the second stage. It seemed that the central government’s initiative of prolonging the Civil Emergency status did not help much to halt the conflict, as the animosity and resentment between the two groups appeared to intensify the intergroup conflict. During that time, no one from either community talked about peace, since the Maluku province was totally segregated into Muslim and Christian sides. Many of the government facilities in Maluku were burnt which made coordination between the central government and Maluku’s government difficult. At that time, peace was synonymous with surrender for the conflicting parties. That is why government initiatives seemed to fail. As the escalation in the violence continued, the scope of the conflict also became greater. The military personnel were trapped in the conflict-torn communities, between Islam and Christianity. Even the troops in Ambon experienced frustration and distress as they were not able to effectively handle the chaotic situation. The situation got worse, as reflected in the increasing number of civilians killed and in the thousands of people who were internally displaced. At the beginning, President Abdurrahman Wahid (1999–2000) made a statement that the Maluku conflict can be resolved only by the Maluku people themselves. He received a lot of criticism and even condemnation because of this statement. Finally, he made several interventions, mainly using the security approach, which consisted of intensive patrol systems aimed toward stopping the supply of illegal guns. The central government also sent 16 battalions of military and police groups to aid in the resolution of the Maluku conflict. During Megawati’s presidency (2000–2004), another initiative was introduced by the Coordinator Minister of Social Affairs, Yusuf Kalla (now the vice president), and the Coordinator Minister of Politics and Security, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (now the president). This initiative was known as the Malino II Peace Agreement. These two coordinator ministers realized that the security approach was not enough to resolve the conflict; they understood that the communities must be brought to the table to negotiate. The central government wanted the groups to settle the conflict and sign a peace agreement. With hurried preparations, the government invited 35 representatives from both the Christian and Muslim groups to the meeting. Within a short period of time, they were able to document 11 declaration points (Pieris, 2004). The declaration supported the central government’s initiatives and programs to end the conflict by applying law enforcement to those who violated human rights and the sovereignty of Indonesia. However, in the two weeks following the declaration signing, the conflict erupted again, this time in a more escalated form. Later, it was revealed that many of the invited representatives
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were mainly chosen because of their political affiliation with the current government. Another intervention in the Maluku conflict came from the Maluku provincial government, which initiated the establishment of The Community Center for Reconciliation (Lessy, 2005). This center was originally composed of six individuals from the three communities: Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim. The team was given the assignment to approach community leaders to stop the conflict. At that time, almost all of the communities’ members perceived the conflict as a religious one. Unfortunately, those involved in the Community Center faced a huge rejection from the communities when they tried to approach the communities to campaign for peace. The failure of this team was attributed to the unrepresentativeness of the people chosen to be involved in the center and the short time period of preconsolidation. The provincial government also introduced a limited meeting of 13 Muslim and Christian Latupati (the village headman), but this meeting covered only the region of Jazirah Leihitu. This was the first and only meeting initiated by the provincial government. However, it did not yield the intended results as the Latupati forum called upon the community to stop mobilizing people from this area, but the community did not stop the escalation of violence. This forum also called upon the community to stop the burning of Pattimura University as this area was proposed as a neutral zone. Another form of intervention came from local nongovernment organizations (local NGOs). The first was initiated by the Wayame Team in February 1999, one month after the Ambon conflict erupted (Lessy, 2005). The team’s main task was to protect the Wayame Hamlet community where vital installations (such as a stateowned oil installation and an airport) were located. Although it covered only a limited location, the team was successful in protecting the area from attacks by rioters, as the team mobilized its Muslim team to protect the site against Muslim rioters and also the Christian team to protect against Christian rioters. One of the unique policies of the Wayame Team included not allowing military personnel to come into the protected area. Another small initiative from local NGOs particularly dealt with humanitarian intervention, among which is a particular organization called the Baileo Foundation. The Baileo Foundation focused its efforts on empowering internally displaced people at the grassroots level (Trijono, 2001). Although these kinds of intervention were important in mitigating the conflict, direct efforts geared toward mobilizing and consolidating the grassroots people to resolve their own conflict and to pursue reconciliation efforts were still absent. It took the Baku Bae Movement to break the impasse in resolving the Maluku conflict.
The Baku Bae Movement The Baku Bae Movement came to Maluku months after the first conflict erupted in the early part of 2000. At that time several NGO activists and academicians gathered together to discuss the situation in Maluku. It was realized that something must
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be done to stop the conflict and to encourage the people to foster reconciliation, something that was considered to be very difficult at that time. Several formal and informal discussions were undertaken involving academics, NGO activists, and even professionals to discuss every detail of the progress of the Maluku conflict. At that time, it was Ichsan Malik who decided to immerse himself in the Maluku conflict, not as “a part of the conflict,” but as “a part of the solution.” In the middle of the perplexity, we (people who had gathered together before) had a conviction that someone who was neutral, sincere, and unburdened with any political and other interests had the capability to provide conflict resolution techniques as well as the “courage” to go to the Maluku “hot spots” with a view to knocking on the door of the community and persuading them to work toward reconciliation. In coordination with the BSP-Kemala Foundation, a local NGO, Ichsan Malik and Eliakim Sitorus (two of the prominent NGO activists at that time) traveled for two months to meet every possible conflicting party in and around Maluku. Sometimes they were accepted, while at other times, they were rejected, and their motives were also questioned. At that time, their only strategy was to try to find the local community’s combat leaders from both sides and to speak to them about peace. They also visited other respected people who had influence in the community, such as village heads (the Latupati), intellectuals, and religious leaders. It was very difficult to introduce peace, as the word itself was perceived as “surrender” for both sides. But nonetheless, several parties agreed to join a meeting with the goal of mobilizing toward reconciliation. After coming back from the long journey in the field, the process of the Baku Bae Movement began. The first step involved internal consolidation among the supporters of this movement. Initiated by Ichsan Malik with support from Eliakim Sitorus from the Biodiversity Support Program of BSP-Kemala, a series of informal meetings were held in the early part of April 2000. The discussion invited activists from different groups. This included representatives from the Hualopu-Ambon Foundation, Tirus Tania Thenu, the coordinator of humanitarian intervention, and a Protestant priest.2 This meeting was considered as an important precondition to convince people regarding the possibility of stopping the conflict, where all the conflicting parties are seen as “victims” of the conflict. At the meeting, the possibility of one side being considered as the “perpetrator” and the other as “victims” was avoided. Those at the meeting were convinced that Maluku’s people must solve their own problems; that is, the prospects for peace cannot be entrusted to the bureaucracy or the state (as there is a clear indication of state failure), or at worst, in the hands of political parties, as they are “part of the problem,” not “part of the solution.” At that time, it was concluded that the best choice was to mobilize the grassroots reconciliation process, while temporarily putting aside the top-down process, given the 2 We
must credit the members of the meeting at that time because we can consider them as the first batch of this movement. From the Hualopu-Ambon: Lury Sipasulta, Ricky Palyama. From the Inovasi Group Ambon: Elly and Ghazali Zakaria. From community leaders: Haji Yusuf Eli. From Tirus Tania: Siti Sangadji. And especially Pieter G. Mannopo, the Protestant priest who later became a core member of the Baku Bae Movement.
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“state failure.” Gaining wider support and collaboration from the elements of civil society is an important and necessary supporting condition to this process. However, the key element of the peace movement relied on the conflicting parties themselves. Trying to bring as many combatant leaders as possible to the negotiating table (this was called as the Workshop) is the key to peace. One of the difficulties came from the activists representing the Komando Jihad and the Laskar Jihad. In particular, they did not want to stop the war as they believed it provided a path to martyrdom (the Jihad way) in defense of Islam in Maluku. Ichsan Malik visited these activists in June 2000 in Kaliurang, Yogyakarta, and held some informal discussions there. Again, patience and persistence proved to be important in convincing them that the Maluku war was a “useless war,” as the advantages of the conflict went to “someone else” and not to the community. One of the significant meetings that proved to be a milestone in the movement was a national meeting facilitated by Boedhi Wijarjo and Dadang Trisasongko from the Indonesian Foundation for Legal Aid Services and Munir and Munarman from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violent Actions. Benefiting from the national and international reputation of these two NGOs, the Baku Bae Movement was promoted to society (Malik, 2003). After this meeting, the interactive problem-solving workshop (IPSW), as inspired by the work of Kelman (1990) and Kelman and Cohen (1986), was prepared for the conflicting parties. The Baku Bae Joint Committee announced this workshop to the public as the Suara Hati (The Voices of the Heart) workshop. This workshop invited six leaders (composed of guerilla war leaders, the head of the village, and the priest) from both sides. The two-week workshop was held in August 2000 in Jakarta. Pieter G. Manoppo, a priest from Saparua who participated in this workshop, said that the atmosphere of the workshop itself was quiet terrifying because all the participants were under threat from their communities for discussing reconciliation (Malik et al., 2003). From this workshop a position paper entitled Suara Hati Korban Kerusuhan Maluku (The Voices from the Heart of the Maluku Conflict Victims) was submitted to President Abdurrahman Wahid in August 27, 2000. The paper called upon the government to take quick and effective steps to stop the conflict and encourage the Maluku people to work toward reconciliation. In response to this paper, the government extended the Civil Emergency status due to the conflict situation. In order to understand what the people really felt and knew about the social conflict, the Baku Bae Joint Committee held its first opinion poll. Using stratified random sampling method, this first opinion poll used semi-guided questionnaires in generating the views of 1,327 Christians from 30 locations and 1,241 Muslims from 30 locations. The polling was conducted in September 2000 in the middle of the “war.”3 The most important finding of these polls was that the majority of the Maluku people were in a state of confusion, anger, and hopelessness. They did
3 We express our sorrow to the family of the late Hasyim Sanaki, one of our interviewers. He was shot on October 2000 when he was collecting data in the Tulehu coastal.
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not understand at all who was responsible for the conflict as well as what the real root cause of the conflict was. They really wanted the conflict to stop; thus, they supported the initiatives that came from all the parties involved in the conflict. Most of respondents felt that the state apparatuses (army, police, and bureaucracy officer) were not capable of handling the situation and even got involved in the conflict. The polls helped us to map the aspirations of the Maluku people. More importantly, the polls gave us a “mandate” to continue the Baku Bae processes. It clearly showed us signs that the people supported our mission. The findings of the polls were spread in the communities by means of leaflets and by word of mouth. This form of communication proved to be effective in gaining wider support from the community and made the joint committee’s task of persuading the “hard liner” fractions in the Maluku conflict to go to the next (second) workshop in Bali in October 2000 much easier. This second workshop was sponsored by OTI-USAID and BSP-Kemala Foundation. With the method of snowballing, the 12 initial participants in the Jakarta workshop tried to persuade their fellow guerilla war leaders and other influential informal leaders in the communities to attend the workshop. To balance both parties, the composition of participants was deliberately managed to include 20 Muslims and 20 Christians. Bali was chosen as the workshop site to provide the participants with a calm and peaceful atmosphere. In this workshop, the participants were free to express their feelings and emotions, as well as their perceptions of the conflict. Quite similar to the IPSW implemented by Herbert Kelman (1990, 1991, 1996) and with some modifications to match the conditions in Indonesia, the participants were encouraged to communicate frankly with their previous opponents; to discuss the conflict in an analytical manner; to understand each other’s positions, needs, beliefs, motives, and fears; and to seek creative solutions to their own problems. During this meeting, the term Baku Bae was introduced. In coming up with this term, a “psychologically common language” was found which suggests a spirit of peace and which is not associated with the idea of surrender, because at that time, the word “peace” was rejected by the community, given the ethos of war that pervaded it. Finally, inspiration was gained from the children’s game wherein quarreling children tried to resume their friendship by saying, “Let us be kind to one another.” Grammatically, Baku means “each other” or “reciprocally,” while Bae means “to be kind to others,” “making peace,” or “making friendships.” So the children would say, “Let us Baku Bae.” This creative term provided the participants with a common language or common peace discourse that enabled them to move to the next step of the peace movement. The workshop also recommended to the Baku Bae Joint Committee to conduct some activities regarding educational and small economic empowerment for the Maluku community. Professor J. E. Louhenapessy from Pattimura University was convinced that the term Baku Bae had made this movement well-accepted in all the communities, especially combined with its bottom-up process (Malik et al., 2003). The series of IPSWs was continued in Yogyakarta on December 2000, where the charismatic traditional Javanese king, The Sultan of Hamengkubuwono X, resides. Yogyakarta was chosen not only to provide a spirit of peace, but also to get moral
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support from its sultan (the king) as a legitimate symbol for the movement. Although the power of the former Javanese kingdom is kept in a symbolic form, the influence of the sultan (the king) was still alive in the community. For the first time in the Baku Bae Movement, announcements regarding meetings were made public just after the meeting was closed. Previously, the meetings were kept confidential in order to prevent unintended interventions as well as to ensure security. The public announcements were usually made in the weeks following the meeting. The sultan’s public expressions were considered very important as his statements encouraged the spirit of peace in the Maluku community, given that most people had lost their trust in their local religious leaders. Thus, support from the sultan gave the people further encouragement to pursue peace. The third workshop was also facilitated and supported by the OTI-USAID and the BSP-Kemala Foundation. In this third workshop the number of participants was doubled to 80 persons to include other social groups such as refugees, women, physically disabled victims, religious leaders, village heads, youth, college students, academicians, lawyers, journalists, cultural observers, and Chinese and Butonese local immigrants to Maluku. This workshop provided another milestone for the Baku Bae Movement as it proved to be successful in reweaving the wider elements of civil society in order to mobilize the reconciliation processes (for a graphical representation of our approach, see Fig. 1). After this workshop, Eliakim Sitorus remembered there were rumors spreading, such as “The blood of Baku Bae people is legal.” He realized that although more people understood the uselessness of war, there were still those who disliked peace (Malik et al., 2003). Rum Suneth, one of the Baku Bae participants, stated that threats were made to his family, even to his parents who had no idea what their son was doing.
Fig. 1 The civil society components involved in the Baku Bae Movement. Figure on the left with the two thumbs symbolizes the Baku Bae Movement
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After the Yogyakarta meeting, the Baku Bae strategy moved toward campaigning, which was done with a series of “road shows.” This process began with a press conference at the office of the Foundation of Indonesian Legal Aid Services in Jakarta. A couple of days later, the committee met the chairman of the House of Representatives, Akbar Tanjung. The Baku Bae Committee proposed three recommendations during this meeting: (1) the initiation of the working team for conflict resolution in Maluku, (2) the establishment of a fact-finding commission, and (3) the publication of a regular progress report about the Maluku conflict for the public every three months. The road shows were used for meeting with communities in East Java, Makassar, and North Sumatra in order to encourage people outside Maluku to avoid being prone to outbreaks of social conflict by developing early warning systems for preventing another social conflict. On January 2001, a commitment with Oxfam was established with a view to providing community empowerment programs and sponsoring a series of workshops. Jenny McAvoy from Oxfam Great Britain who is stationed in Indonesia stated that “As compared to other similar efforts that stop in the middle, this Baku Bae reconciliation process keeps growing. I am indeed touched,” (Joint Committee Baku Bae publication, 2001). On April 10, 2001, the campaign strategy was extended to gain support from the international community. Hearings and discussions with the European Union Parliament were held in Brussels and were chaired by Hanja Maij Weggen. In this meeting, the Indonesian delegation was composed of prominent religious leaders, intellectuals, and the Indonesian ambassador for the European Union. Although the funding for this delegation was secured by international donor agencies (Netherland’s Oxfam, Netherland’s Hivos, Netherland’s Pax Christi), and not by the Indonesian government, the government gave its moral and political support by sending the Indonesian ambassador in this delegation. Based on this meeting, the following recommendations were put forward: (1) the institution of independent investigation teams to reveal the root causes of the Maluku conflict, (2) the European Union’s provision of support for antiviolence campaigns, (3) the reintegration of internally displaced persons (refugees) to their communities after the restoration and reconstruction processes, (4) the creation of laws to protect witnesses, especially those in the context of social conflict, and (5) the provision of grants by the European Union in order to support the sustainability of the movement. This international campaign was extended to the Netherlands. The meetings with NGOs, the parliament, and the citizens of the Netherlands who came from Indonesia (whether they still kept their Indonesian citizenship or had become citizens of the Netherlands, since the number of these people currently is about 80,000) were considered very important as it was realized that the South Maluku Republic (RMS) also gained support from these people. The series of meetings in the Netherlands resulted in one important conclusion, which led the participants to realize that the key to reconciliation lay in the hands of the people of Maluku. However, the success of this mediation and facilitation processes, including the Baku Bae Movement, would depend on support from the national and international communities. From this international road show, it was guaranteed that all international elements that
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had been connected in the past with the conflicting parties in Maluku (especially South Maluku Republic, RMS) would not intervene in the peacemaking process and would give their support to the local people to solve their own problems. In the next months after returning from the road show activities, a series of workshops were intensified for various groups of people related to the Maluku conflict. This included intellectuals, journalists, lawyers, the village heads, the youth, the religious leaders, and even army and police officers. From 2001 until 2002, a series of at least 15 meetings were held (for details, see Malik, 2003). During this period, the second poll was conducted. The results of the polls indicated strong public support for the grassroots reconciliation, as had been initiated by the Baku Bae Movement. The results of the poll were discussed during the series of meetings. These discussions resulted in a more holistic comprehension of the nature of the Maluku conflict. The series of workshops were intended to unite the elements of the civil society with a view to mobilizing and strengthening the Baku Bae Movement (see Fig. 1 depicting this process). Other core activities promoted by the Baku Bae Movement during interventions in the Maluku conflict included the institution of neutral zones in Maluku. These neutral zones were proposed to create safe areas where Christians and Muslims could come together for business, education, and the delivery of health services. The most popular among the three zones that were established was known as the Baku Bae Market. In this traditional market, the Christians and Muslims, both indigenous and local immigrants, participated both as vendors and as shoppers. This market aimed to enhance intergroup contact and to raise trust and solidarity between the conflicting parties. Another important thing that must be noted during the process of the Baku Bae Movement involved dealing with media bias in reporting the Maluku conflict. As some of the media channels were directly or indirectly owned by the conflicting parties, some reports appeared to favor one side over the other. To reduce this bias, on January 2001, Baku Bae and Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI) or Indonesian’s Alliance for Independent Journalist held a training on peace journalism for 30 journalists. On August 2001, the Baku Bae Movement was awarded the Suardi Tasrif Award from AJI for its effort in developing peace journalism in Maluku and Indonesia. On considering the structural inequality bases of Maluku’s conflict, the Baku Bae Movement realized that handling this deep-rooted problem need a thorough and long-term effort that should be implemented mostly by the government. The strategy was to pave the way for the government to do social, economic, and political reconstruction after the “war” ended. The first step was to reweave the torn-apart grassroots community and raise their consciousness about the primacy of peace rather than revenge. This strategy was proven successful with the establishment of the local “Heads” forum (Majelis Latupati) that had cultural and moral legitimacy to mobilize people to peace and civil society movements that embraced all representatives of the Maluku people. The Baku Bae Movement also established neutral zone, neutral traditional market, and some activities in empowerment program in cooperation with local and international NGOs. The Baku Bae Movement also
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“pushes hard” for the government to take concrete measures in terms of policy to balance the economic, social, and political power between these two communities.
Stages and Processes in the Baku Bae Movement: A Summary From his long journey, Ichsan Malik noted 12 crucial activities that determined the success of the Baku Bae Movement in developing peace in Maluku (Malik, 2003). 1. Conflict-transformation workshops for intellectuals. Since May 2001, Baku Bae has initiated a series of workshop for Maluku’s intellectuals (academicians) to facilitate their concrete contributions to stop violence and reconstruct educational development in Maluku. 2. Youth workshop. On July 9–11, 2001, Baku Bae organized a workshop for 21 Maluku youngsters focusing on how to understand the conflict dynamic and establish peace in Maluku. 3. Conflict-transformation workshop for religious leaders. On July 23–28, 2001, Baku Bae conducted a workshop for Islamic religious scholars and Catholic and Protestants priests. After several long days of debate, participants concluded that the conflict in Maluku was not between religions, but involved religious people. Religious symbols had been exploited and politicized in certain ways by these elites. 4. Lobbying: Maluku Protestant Church (GPM) leaders. On October 30, 2001, Baku Bae activists met Sinode, the chairman and coordinator of the Crisis Center of Maluku Protestant Churches, to discuss the possibility of holding a convention involving strategic parties interested in stopping the violence in Maluku. 5. Lobbying: Chairman of Imarat Council of Maluku Muslims (BIMM). On November 7, 2001, Baku Bae met Ustadz Ali Fauzi, the chairman of Imarat Council of Maluku Muslims, to discuss the convention agenda. 6. Meeting: Maluku Governor M. Saleh Latuconsina. On November 9, 2001, Baku Bae met the Maluku governor to propose him as the key person in the convention, along with GPM and BIMM. 7. Meeting: Maluku intellectuals and educators. On October 22–26, 2001, Baku Bae held a meeting for educators and intellectuals to discuss their role, position, and efforts in stopping violence and building peace in Maluku. 8. Lobbying: Chief of Maluku Military Command, Brigadier General Moestopo. On November 12, 2001, Baku Bae met the Maluku military leader to propose him as the resource person for a meeting between the army, police, and civilians. 9. Trans-conflict workshops for the army, police, and civilians. During November 2001, Baku Bae facilitated two workshops for the army,
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police, and civilians, one in Muslim and another in Christian territories. These workshops were intended to develop mutual awareness about SWOT toward the efforts in stopping violence in Maluku. 10. Conflict-transformation workshop for lawyers. On January 19, 2002, Baku Bae held a workshop for lawyers to challenge them to reinforce the legal process for the victims of the Maluku conflict. 11. Conflict-transformation workshop for Latupatis (village headmen). On July 2002, Baku Bae held a workshop attended by 16 village headmen (eight from Muslim villages and eight from Christian villages) to reflect on their role and position in designing the future of Maluku. 12. Latupati convention to embrace Maluku’s future. On January 9–11, 2003, Baku Bae and Pattimura University organized a convention for Maluku Latupatis to stop the conflict and discuss the future of Maluku. The convention was attended by 148 participants—79 Latupatis (headmen) and 69 intellectuals, lawyers, journalists, religious scholars, NGOs, refugees, and youths. Based on the previous description of the Baku Bae activities from 2000 to 2003, the processes can be divided into three stages depicted in Fig. 2. On January 2003, Oxfam Great Britain in Indonesia carried out an evaluation of the Baku Bae Movement. In their unpublished (internal) report prepared by Indrian
Fig. 2 Baku Bae Peace Movement stages
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Tagor Lubis, it was revealed that the effectiveness of this movement rested on their innovation in revitalizing and rebuilding indigenous social wisdom and empowering the local leader in its approach. Although it was suggested (at that time, 2003) that the optimum results in building peace would be greater if it was complemented by top-down approach (more initiative from the government), this evaluation also documented that the Baku Bae had reached a level of momentum in raising the consciousness and hope of the Maluku people for a future peaceful country. Some critical notes were also documented by this report on the importance of integrating all the activities (series of consecutive workshops; empowerment program; and the coordination between steering committee, joint committee, and other elements that have been rewoven by the Baku Bae Movement) into a coherent and sustainable movement. A greater appreciation came in 2005 from the European Centre for Conflict Prevention (ECCP), which nominated the Baku Bae Movement as one of 65 successful peacebuilding stories around the world. These stories were published in a book of People Building Peace II edited by Tongeren et al. (2005).
Toward a Peace Psychology of Grassroots Reconciliation In reflecting on the Baku Bae Movement, what are the lessons that can be learned from this experience in order to advance peace psychology? Some insights and principles drawn from the movement are as follows. Peace psychology, as defined by Christie, Wagner, and Winter (2001), consists of theories and practices aimed at the prevention and mitigation of direct and structural violence. With another formulation, it can be described as the psychological aspects of nonviolent conflict management and of the pursuit of social justice, with the former being referred to as peacemaking and latter being known as peacebuilding. What has been done in the Baku Bae Movement can be regarded as practicing peacemaking and peacebuilding consecutively. In many cases, explanations of massive social conflicts like the Maluku conflict need multilevel explanation at the historical, social, and intergroup levels. Borrowing the social psychological explanation (Fisher, 2006) and peace psychology framework from Christie et al. (2001), it was apparent that the longtime history of structural inequalities would produce structural violence when triggered by immediate causes such as small quarrels or misinformation, which lead people to be easily provoked toward direct intergroup violence. From the point of view of social and political psychology, this particular intergroup conflict cannot be simply explained as a matter of misperceptions but was in fact rooted in real differences between groups in terms of social and political power, access to resources, and other significant incompatibilities (Fisher, 2006). Thus, in the context of the Maluku conflict, all efforts must be dedicated to advancing peacemaking and peacebuilding. With this background, the Baku Bae Movement provides the following assumptions in resolving the chronic intergroup conflict in Maluku. First, the direct violence
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must be stopped with a combination of security and psychological (peacemaking) measures. The efforts of the security authorities in the government should not be undermined. However, with the current failure of the state to stop the violence, the strategy of strengthening the grassroots people who are involved in the conflict seems to be the best alternative choice. The first psychological capital that must be utilized in facing this acute intergroup conflict is to never lose hope. As assessed by Wake (2004) in reflecting on the Baku Bae Movement, the Baku Bae Joint Committee only had hope, patience, and persistence in the early part of the movement. Given that the aftermath of the conflict resulted in the breaking down of social capital, what was needed was to rebuild social trust among members of society. To do this, the first step involved bringing in a conflict resolution mediator who was neutral and trustworthy. With the role of the mediator, the reweaving of the society which had been torn apart would begin. One thing that needs to be considered if one wants to implement grassroots approaches such as the Baku Bae Movement is finding the “right moment” to begin. This approach could not have taken place if there had been an “all out war” on a massive scale such as in Rwanda or Georgia. Some sort of military operation to ensure a ceasefire needs to be implemented before grassroots movement can begin. After the ceasefire has taken place, there is no need to wait until all the escalation has completely stopped to begin the process. Looking at the first stage of the Baku Bae Movement, it was clear that the series of IPSWs can be regarded as representing the process of healing in the community. Furthermore, these workshops seemed to foster the process of forgiveness, to strengthen social trust, and to consequently revitalize the social capital. This process also built solid grassroots networks that would function as the “peacekeeping guards” while helping people from being involved in future conflicts. The key to the success in stopping the direct violence appeared to lie in the awakening of the critical conscience of the guerrilla leaders, which was undertaken through the series of IPSWs. These activities made the guerilla leaders realize that what they did in past conflicts was useless and that nothing was left of the conflict, except inhumanity. The second assumption held was that the grassroots reconciliation would not endure if there was no social empowerment. The conditions, in terms of economic, educational, social, and political status, were so fragile and seemed to be opened to provocations toward conflict. This is why collaborative efforts with some institutions and NGOs to provide humanitarian effort and to empower the community in economic, educational, and health terms were kept at a maximum level to pave the way for government to foster socioeconomic reconstruction in postconflict situation. It is believed that all efforts must be mobilized to gain wider support from society and from both the national and the international communities. The support from the larger community was important in order to provide a climate that was conducive to fostering intergroup reconciliation, since it provided signals to the conflicting communities that peace, rather than taking revenge, was more supported. From this Baku Bae Movement, an important lesson was learned; promoting peace to conflicting parties was much easier if we could find a common language
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of peace (the Baku Bae), a language that would not produce a sense of “shame” among the community members (“peace” at that time was considered the same as surrender). This was another psychological mechanism that mobilized the society toward the peace process. In his observations on the Baku Bae Movement, Wake (2004) made some fruitful comments which were in line with the peace psychology assumptions. First, in order to undertake grassroots or bottom-up reconciliation, one will have to get “the mandate” or gain some credibility from the community. The mandate can be gleaned from public polling activities as was done in the Baku Bae Movement. Second, the negotiation processes and the intensive IPSWs enabled the parties to negotiate by providing them with a climate of social trust and solidarity. Third, the structure of negotiation must ensure the balance of power between the parties. Fourth, patience is not only a virtue, but also a necessity as a long-term commitment is needed to address communities in conflict.
The Future of Baku Bae As the conflict escalation had completely stopped by the end of 2004, the Baku Bae Movement has now transformed itself to a new era. To ensure the sustainability of this movement and given that this movement was never institutionalized from the beginning, the members of the previous Baku Bae Movement sought to transform this movement into the Institut Titian Perdamaian (ITP) or The Indonesian Peace Building Institute. The institute was established in 2003 with the mission of undertaking long-term peacebuilding activities such as training conflict mediators/conflict mediation facilitators and developing early warning systems for conflict. Since 2004, the ITP, in cooperation with the Department of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, and with support from the New Zealand government, has carried out training for conflict resolution and mediation for many peace activists, academicians, and young people. Now, the future of peace psychology in Indonesia is secure with the opening of a peace psychology program at the Universitas Indonesia in partnership with the ITP.
References Brown, G., Wilson, C., & Hadi, S. (2005). Overcoming violent conflict, Vol.4: Peace and development analysis in Maluku and North Maluku. Jakarta: CPRU-UNDP, LIPI, BAPEENAS. Christie, D. J., Wagner, R. V., & Winter. D. D., (2001). Peace, conflict and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st century. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. Available at http://academic.marion.ohio-state.edu/dchristie/Peace%ychology%20Book.html Cooley, F. L. (1962). Ambonese adat: A general description. New Haven: Yale University Press. Fisher, R. J. (2006). Intergroup conflict. In M. Deutsch, P. T. Coleman, & R. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice (2nd ed., pp. 176–196). San Francisco: Josey-Bass.
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Kelman, H. C. (1990). Interactive problem-solving: A social-psychological approach to conflict resolution. In J. Burton & F. Dukes (Eds.), Conflict: Reading in management and resolution (pp. 199–215). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kelman, H. C. (1991). Interactive problem solving: The uses and limits of a therapeutic model for the resolution of conflicts. In V. Volkan, D. Julius, & J. Montville (Eds.), The psychodynamics of interpersonal relationships (Vol. 2, pp. 145–160). Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Kelman, H. C. (1996). The interactive problem-solving approach. In C. A. Crocker & F. O. Hampson (Eds.), Managing global chaos: Sources of and responses to international conflict (pp. 501–519). Washington: US Institute of Peace. Kelman, H. C., & Cohen, S. P. (1986). Resolution of international conflict: an interactional approach. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 323–342). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Lessy, Z. (2005). The Ambon conflict and social work intervention (a critical study of reconciliation efforts between Muslim and Christian communities initiated by governmental and nongovernmental organizations. Unpublished MA Thesis, McGill University, Canada. Malik, I. (2003). Baku Bae: Gerakan dari akar rumput untuk menghentikan kekerasan di Maluku (Baku Bae: Grassroots movements to prevent violence in the Mollucas). Jakarta: Tifa & Kemala Foundations. Malik, I., Pattinaja, M., Putuhena, S., Yakob, T., et al. (2003). Baku Bae: Breaking the violence with compassion. Jakarta: Yappika. Panggabean, R. (2004). Maluku: The challenge of peace. In A. Heijmans, N. Simmonds, & H. V. de Veen (Eds.), Searching for peace in Asia Pacific (pp. 416–437) London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Pieris, J. (2004). Tragedi Maluku (The tragedy of Mollucas). Jakarta: Yayasan Obor. Toengeren, P. V., Brenk, M., Hellema, M., & Verhoeven, J. (Eds.). (2005). People building peace II: Successful stories of civil society (Project of the European Centre for Conflict Prevention). London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Trijono, L. (2001). Keluar dari kemelut Maluku: Refleksi pengalaman praktis bekerja untuk Maluku (Out of the cycle of violence in the Mollucas: Reflections for practical work experience for the Mollucas). Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. Wake, J. (2004). Lesson learned from peacebuilding practices in Asia Pacific. In A. Heijmans, N. Simmonds, & H. V. de Veen (Eds.), Searching for peace in Asia Pacific (pp. 105–134). London: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
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Memory for Sale: How Groups “Distort” Their Collective Memory for Reconciliation Purposes and Building Peace Hamdi Muluk
In this chapter I propose that in the context of reconciliation and peacebuilding, the construct of memory can be conceptualized as an individual and a social entity. Within the latter, the notion of memory as a collective or as a distributed recollection of events is emphasized. These memories somehow are related to certain components necessary for successful reconciliation efforts such as healing, forgiveness, truth, justice, and compensation. I further argue that the reconciliation process, in its essence, is the reconciliation of the memories themselves. The current model proposed to guide the study shows a bidirectional relationship between the constructs of collective memory and reconciliation, where the way people interpret, remember, and recall past events affects how they resolve social conflict and vice versa. Hence, appropriating collective memories may be the key to reconciliation regardless of the way it is achieved (even to the extent of distorting the memories for economic compensation). A one-sided persistence and claims of a group’s collective memories may impede the reconciliation process (Bar-Tal, 2007; Cairns & Roe, 2003; Tint, 2002). Using the case of a voluntary community reconciliation process in Indonesia, I show how it is possible to some extent to distort aspects of collective memory in the reconciliation process. In this case, a trade-off was agreed between the two parties, where the victimized party changed its memories when given some monetary compensation leading to reconciliation and satisfaction from both sides.
Reconciliation Context: The Tanjung Priok Case The Tanjung Priok case is used as an example of how community reconciliation is achieved through the “memory for sale” phenomenon. The study focused on the victims of the Tanjung Priok “tragedy” who chose reconciliation rather than retribution. Twenty-three “pro-reconciliation initiators” out of 300 victims participated in the study. Data from observation, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions were content analyzed while at the same time subjected to conversational and discourse analysis. The core themes that emerged are presented. C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_6, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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A Brief History of Tanjung Priok’s Political “Tragedy” The Tanjung Priok community is a harbor district in the northern part of Jakarta. The population of this district consists of a diverse group of people from many ethnic and sociodemographic backgrounds, the majority being Muslims from the low-income group. The incident started on September 12, 1984, when the army killed many protesters attending the political rally organized by the community leader to protest the arrest of four of its members without proper legal procedure a few days earlier. These four were members of the community mosque committee. They were allegedly accused of attacking the army official who tried to warn the community to stop spreading rumors and agitating against government policy. At that time, Suharto’s authoritarian regime was suspicious of any Islamic political activities and had placed tight pressure on them, including the use of the army to spy on their activities. Under Suharto, the army served the role of policing the community. The army officers tried to remove several political posters on the outer walls of the mosque by pouring dirty water from the drainage system on them. The four mosque members considered the act insulting, a violation of the sanctity of the mosque. A report mentioned that a quarrel broke out between the officers and the mosque members who were later arrested. The incident precipitated tension and hostility and led to the community riot on September 12, 1984, where one of the community leaders was killed and many more blindly shot by the military. Others were detained and allegedly tortured in connection with the demonstration. Unofficial eyewitnesses at the scene reported seeing trucks carrying away loads of dead bodies. The government and especially the military forces concealed the incident from the media, censoring every detail of the tragedy. The day after the massacre, General L. B. Moerdani, commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, gave the official version of the event in a broadcasted public announcement: “Irresponsible agitations were the cause of the incident and the inevitable casualties.” In reaction to the broadcasted official version of the tragedy, some political opposition members drafted a petition entitled “the white paper on the Tanjung Priok tragedy.” This effort resulted not only in the detainment of the initiators of this white paper, but also in the arrest of people from the community who were charged with the reproduction, distribution, and possession of the pamphlets or cassettes which questioned the official explanation of the incident. Almost all of the detainees were regarded as military prisoners and tortured. They were charged for subversion and for precipitating, initiating, and organizing political riots and were sentenced from 1 to 20 years in prison (Burns, 1989). The community was traumatized, resulting in hatred and animosity between the relatives of the victims and perpetrators in the community. For many years after the incident, there was a period of “silent memory” where the regime imposed strong and tight controls over the official history. As people or parties who questioned the Tanjung Priok event were detained, there was also a
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period of “political hopelessness.” The fall of the authoritarian regime in May 21, 1998, opened the door for the community to reclaim their collective memory of past political violence, not only in the case of the Tanjung Priok “tragedy,” but other incidents that were committed by the Suharto regime. As a response to the public’s demands for justice on the Tanjung Priok “tragedy” the new government under President B. J. Habibie established the Tim Pencari Fakta (fact-revealing team) under the National Human Rights Commission in 1999. The team’s report recommended the government and the House of Representatives reveal the truth about the “tragedy” to the people, do justice to past victims, and bring the perpetrators to trial. These recommendations, however, were not entertained by Habibie’s administration. During President Abdurrahman Wahid’s administration, another commission, The Investigative Commission and Examination of Human Rights Violation on Tanjung Priok, was set up in March 8, 2000. Public response to the commission’s report ranged from acceptance to strong rejection. Many people were not satisfied with the number of body counts of the dead, the place where the army buried the dead, and the persons responsible for the “tragedy.” At the same time, the public attorney came under strong pressures from the public to charge, under human rights violation, the former army members considered responsible for the shooting of the demonstrators. The trial for the former army officers considered responsible for the tragedy did not meet the expectation of the human rights activists who wanted the two retired generals, General L. B. Moerdani (the chief commander of the army at the time of the “tragedy”) and General Try Soetrisno (the Jakarta district chief commander of the army at the time of the “tragedy”), to be put on trial and charged. The trial process was problematic due to the lack of convincing evidence (based only on the memories of the victims) as the event happened 18 years ago. The burden of resolving many of the legacies of past political violence, such as the 1965 “massacre” in Aceh, the military operation in East Timor and Papua, and the Tanjung Priok “tragedy,” was too much for the government to handle. They did not have the time and energy to do so. Thus, the idea to establish the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) ended with the abolishment of the basic law that enabled the establishment of the TRC. Had this effort proceeded, it would have faced numerous difficulties because many of Suharto’s friends in the old regime still dominated the parliament and government bureaucracy. This situation provoked tension at the grassroots level and also in the Tanjung Priok community. The years following Suharto’s downfall was filled with public discourse and debate over whether to forget or to remember, to discover the truth or to deny, to avenge or to forgive. The case soon became a political commodity, with many free-riding politicians or political parties using it as their political agenda to gain political mileage. The situation did not help the Tanjung Priok victims, and without any clear and focused government response to the case, whether to establish the TRC or any other similar process, the victims were forced to bear the psychological burden of this “tragedy” alone. In the middle of this uncertainty, confusion, and hopelessness, the victims of the Tanjung Priok “tragedy” organized themselves into a community foundation to
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try to strengthen themselves in the hope of finding the best solution that fits their needs, to relieve the psychological burden of the past, and to move forward to a better future. This act was made possible mainly due to the loosening of the central government’s grip after Suharto’s downfall and the stronger voices at the grassroots level. The victims of the “tragedy” firmly articulated their “core” needs, to restore and rehabilitate their reputation and not be stigmatized as “political criminals,” to restore their rights for equal opportunity in many fields, and to guarantee their economic well-being in the future, especially for their children. They realized the futility of bringing to trial the past perpetrators, given the reality of Indonesia’s poor legal system and its lack of court credibility. To do so, the victims, facilitated by mediators (some were political activists, while others were intellectuals and religious scholars), held a series of private meetings with their past perpetrators. The series of meetings involving encounters and disclosures resembled a truth-telling process but not in the formal sense as it was kept undisclosed. On March 1, 2001, mediated by the most prominent and respected Muslim intellectual and religious leader, Nurcholis Madjid, the majority of the victims reached a “peace” agreement with their past perpetrators, the army officers. They signed the “reconciliation agreement” called Piagam Islah. They used the term Islah,1 meaning reconciliation in Islam. With the signing of this charter, they agreed to end the resentment and restore the relationship between the two parties. The questions that still remained in their mind were: how to forgive their past enemies, and what factors would help them reconcile? Some observers did not consider this type of reconciliation proper because the process was not mediated and sponsored by a legal and political party (such as the TRC in South Africa and in other countries). I prefer to consider it a “voluntary reconciliation” or community reconciliation. In spite of the absence of legal and political parties, the spirit of this reconciliation matched three core criteria as mentioned by Mellor and Bretherton (2003). These are reaching a consensus about the past, resolving the current problem, and working together to achieve a better future. To understand the reconciliation process in the Tanjung Priok case, the next section provides relevant literature on reconciliation and the role of memory in this process.
Literature on Reconciliation The term “reconciliation” in the conflict resolution literature is considered relatively new by many scholars (Rouhana, 2004) and is widely used in the context of political
1 Quoting
from Mubarok (2001), the term Islah meaning reconciliation in Arabic is derived from the word Shalaha. Shalaha refers to that which is good, proper, suitable, as well as peaceful reconciliation and compromise. In the Qur’an, while the families of those who have been unjustly killed, can exact revenge (as in the case of Tanjung Priok), they are however encouraged to forgive and reconcile (Qur’an 42:40).
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transition from authoritarian to democratic regime (e.g., South Africa, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, the Philippines, Indonesia, and countries in the Eastern European Bloc). The issues that are addressed in the reconciliation process range from discovering the truth about what happened in the past, pursuing some form of justice, healing trauma, and seeking apology and forgiveness to reconstruction and compensation. In describing the diverse areas of reconciliation as an academic discipline, especially in the field of conflict resolution study, some scholars (e.g., Bar-Tal & Bennink, 2004; Long & Brecke, 2003; Merwe, 1999; Muluk, 2004; Nadler & Shnabel, 2008) have structured their reviews based on at least five categories. The first category is based on theories and models such as rational choice or game theory, human needs theory, socioemotional versus instrumental models, and forgiveness model. The second category is based on spheres of reconciliation, referring to the area of human relations, such as identity, attitude, belief, and behavior. The third category relates to components of reconciliation associated with the social needs of the parties involved, such as justice, truth, healing, and security. In the fourth category, reconciliation can be classified according to the level of intervention, whether it is at the interpersonal, community, or national level. The final category is based on the “political approach” used in the process, whether it is a bottom-up approach or a top-down approach or both. In the first category of reconciliation, theoretical approaches, the rational choice or game theory model of reconciliation is based on the assumption that human nature pursues maximal utility where the choice to wage a war or make peace depends on a cost/benefit analysis. This model derives its assumption from international disputes where reconciliation is considered the best alternative that can be achieved by the political actors representing their public interests. Although some research in this area demonstrates the possibility of reaching the best alternative based on rationality, this model has been criticized as simplistic because it ignores the role of emotion in the decision-making. However, examining cases of past reconciliation, this model has an advantage in that the parties are able to negotiate aspects that can fulfill their “human needs” as suggested by the proponents of the “human needs theory” (Burton, 1990; Kelman, 1990a, b). The human needs theory of Burton (1990b) asserts that prolonged social conflict or the legacy of past conflict results in a condition of deprivation of basic human needs. The conflict resolution or reconciliation effort works by fulfilling these basic needs. Burton (1990a, b) classifies these needs into (1) needs: referring to universal biological and meta-needs; (2) values: relating to ideas, habits, customs, and beliefs, which are essential components of one’s cultural identity; and (3) interests: involving one’s status or role in the economic and political dimensions. According to Burton’s human needs theory (1990a, b), the negotiation process during reconciliation has to be balanced with respect to needs, values, and interests. Burton (1990a, b) affirms that needs is the organism’s inherent drive for survival, including the needs for identity and recognition. Sometimes, these needs cannot be easily traded off, but some aspect of ideas, beliefs, economics, and political interests can be relatively easy to negotiate or compromise.
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Another theoretical approach in reconciliation is the forgiveness model (BarTal, 2001; Bar-Tal & Bennink, 2004; Long & Brecke, 2003; Shriver, 1995). This approach assumes that the most important thing in reconciliation is the process of forgiving or the transformation of negative emotions such as animosity, anger, hatred, vengeance into forgiveness, and restoration of friendship for a better relationship in the future. Compared to the previous model, this approach emphasizes both emotion and reason. Central to the reconciliation process is “true and genuine forgiveness,” which requires extra effort and patience and sometimes is achievable only in the long run. Long and Brecke (2003) describe the four phases in attaining forgiveness, and these are (1) discovering the truth, (2) redefining social identity, (3) partial justice, and (4) calls for a new relationship. These phases, however, are not ordered in a linear sequence, and some may occur simultaneously in the same time period. The second category of this review on reconciliation considers the aspect of change achieved by the reconciliation process. For reconciliation to be deemed a success, there must be change in some aspects of behavior, attitudes, and values and even in social identity. At the behavioral level, interaction should be cooperative rather than conflicting. A successful reconciliation process further entails a transformation of negative stereotypes such as hatred, fear, distrust, and scorn. The most difficult thing to pursue in reconciliation is changing or redefining of identity. According to Bar-Tal (2000), structuring a new relationship presupposes a willingness for people to reconsider their past position and identity, which relates to the collective memory of one’s group or nation. In other words, reconciling enables people to reconcile with their history and their identity. The third category of reconciliation concerns the substantive components that must be addressed in the reconciliation event such as justice, truth, healing, and security. Although ideally these components should be achieved, in reality fulfilling all aspects of the components is difficult. Some reconciliation may succeed in achieving the truth-revealing process, but not in securing justice or healing. This is not to undermine the effort and spirit of reconciliation, but sometimes we have to be realistic that not all the components can be achieved. The fourth category of reconciliation is based on the social location where reconciliation takes place, whether at the interpersonal, community, or national level. Finally, reconciliation can be categorized as a bottom-up approach, initiated and sponsored by civil society or grassroots movement, or it can be initiated by the state, backed by a legal and political framework, known as the top-down approach. In many cases, there is no perfect type of reconciliation. In South Africa for instance, the TRC was initiated by political consensus at a national level using the top-down approach. Although it was considered a successful reconciliation at the national level (within the political sphere), some empirical research showed many problems at the community and interpersonal levels (Falk, 2001). According to Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004), many reconciliation efforts fail because of the lack of psychological changes taking place following structural measures. Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004) consider reconciliation as a psychological outcome and process between rival groups. According to them, following
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a reconciliation process, outcome refers to changes in motivation, goal, beliefs, attitude, and emotion that result in a new structure of identity and relationship between rival groups. More important than these changes, however, is changing the societal beliefs formed during the conflict about group’s goals, about the rival group, about own group, about relations with the past opponent, and about peace. They also explicitly assert that the core of changing is the changing of societal collective memories. On the other hand, process refers to psychological processes such as information processing, unfreezing, persuasions, learning, reframing, recategorization, and the formation of new psychological repertoire that operate during reconciliation. Furthermore, Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004) assert that “the essence of reconciliation is a psychological process, which consists of changes of the motivation, goals, beliefs, attitudes, and emotions of the majority of society members” (p. 17). These changes will in turn contribute to stable and lasting peace. For Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004), the reconciliation process can begin only when these psychological changes have occurred. To achieve reconciliation, a variety of methods can be employed, and these include apology, establishing TRC, public trials, reparations payments, writing a common history, education, mass media, publicizing meetings between representatives of the groups, the work of NGOs, joint projects, tourism, and cultural exchanges. However, these 12 methods are not mutually exclusive. For example, TRC often also includes apology, public trials, and common history. Thus, in practice, reconciliation processes may utilize any one or a combination of methods in accordance with the specific situation. For example, reconciliation in the South Africa context (Asmal, Asmal, & Roberts, 1997) utilizes TRC together with apology, public trials, and revealing past history, while apology, forgiving, reparations payments, and meetings between representatives of the groups have been the preferred methods in Indonesia (Muluk, 2004). While Bar-Tal and Bennink (2004) emphasize process and outcome in reconciliation, Nadler and Shnabel (2008) and Shnabel and Nadler (2008) in their need-based model of socioemotional reconciliation focus on the interrelation between fulfilling two motives: the instrumental and socioemotional motives. The realist or instrumental approach to reconciliation assumes that conflicts arise due to competition of real resources (economic, political, and natural resources), and to resolve this conflict, the conflicting parties are required to make an agreement as to how to distribute the resources that is deemed to be fair to both parties. The psychological needs or socioemotional approach, on the other hand, assumes that to end conflict and reach reconciliation, threats to basic psychological needs must first be dealt with, followed by the process of removing conflict-related emotional barriers which may hinder the reconciliation process. Therefore, reconciliation for Nadler and Shnabel (2008) involves fulfilling basic needs, as well as removing the conflict-related emotional barrier that blocks the way to ending the conflict. Following victimization episodes during a conflict, there is usually an “implicit” consensus about who is the “victim” and who is the “perpetrator.” While being labeled a victim is associated with a threat to one’s status
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and power, being a perpetrator threatens one’s image as a morally and socially acceptable person (Shnabel & Nadler, 2008). To counter these threats, victims need to restore their sense of power, whereas perpetrators must restore their public moral image (Shnabel & Nadler, 2008). Removing these threats so that victims and perpetrators are able to interact with one another is the essence of the reconciliation process. Nadler and Shnabel (2008) also consider their model to fit in well with the apology–forgiveness cycle. In this case, apology from the perpetrators would signal their acceptance of “wrongdoing” and grant empowerment to the victims, while forgiveness from the victims would restore the perpetrators’ moral image and at the same time remove all threats to both the victims’ and perpetrators’ identities. What is interesting in this model is the mechanism of social exchange that fosters the willingness to reconcile. But the implication of this study is limited because in many conflict situations, there is no clear consensus on who are the “victim” and “perpetrator.”
The Role of Memory in Reconciliation Shriver (1995) explicitly denotes the important role played by memory in the reconciliation process. His model of reconciliation conceptualizes the role of justice, memories, and hope as the necessary components that would foster forgiveness in the community. For Shriver, the individual’s, group’s, or community’s capacity to forgive is related to the psychological mechanism one uses in the reinterpretation of the past, that is, the mechanism of memorizing. The essence of reconciliation is to “bury” past animosity and conflict by restoring friendship and harmony based on mutual respect. Hence, it is clear that reconciliation needs social and political restructuring. Linked to this restoration process is the issue of justice, where past wrongdoings should be acknowledged and justly treated according to the law, with the truth correctly told. However, the problem is whose truth is really the truth? In the case when the historical fact of a past event is lost or difficult to be documented by the official truth commission, the truth about the past might depend on memories. Again we have the problem of whose memories should be acknowledged. As demonstrated by many scholars (e.g., Bar-Tal, 2007; Cairns & Roe, 2003; Tint, 2002), in the conflict situation, memories tend to be organized in such a way as to perpetuate the conflict rather than to reconcile. Even after many decades, the collective remembering of a past conflict will be remembered as historical memories, usually politicized to serve current political agenda (see Liu & Atsumi, 2008). Going back to Shriver’s model of reconciliation, the components of justice, memories, and the hope of restoring harmony in the community are the necessary ingredients to foster forgiveness, which is the essence of reconciliation. In this study of community reconciliation, I use an integrative model of reconciliation that highlights the important role played by collective memory in the reconciliation process (Muluk, 2004). This integrated model is displayed in Fig. 1.
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Conceptual model of the role of collective memory in reconciliation
Traumatic Historical Event
Collective memory (traumatic, negative emotion)
Healing
Successful Reconciliation Peace
Forgiveness
Truth
Justice
Harmonious relationship Changes in: Beliefs Attitudes Values Morality Behavior Transformation of: Ethos, Collective Memory
Compensation
Fig. 1 Conceptual model of the role of collective memory in reconciliation
This model shows that past conflict or political violence results in traumatic collective memories that are emotionally charged. For reconciliation to be achieved, these memories must be healed regardless of time and method. In this model, complete and successful reconciliation is measured by improved relations toward more positive mutual trust; changes in behavior, attitudes, values, and identity; transformation of ethos (from ethos of conflict to ethos of peace); and most importantly, transformation of collective memories. For certain disputes or for some people, time may heal the pain of past conflict, but there is no guarantee that proper healing would be achieved. For this reason, some systematic interventions must be introduced to foster the healing process. In this case, rather than conceptualizing healing as a prerequisite for reconciliation, the reconciliation process itself can be considered a systematic intervention that would foster the healing process. In this model, all the reconciliation components, such as healing, forgiveness, truth, justice, and compensation are related to the notion of memories.2 Forgiveness as mentioned by many 2 In this case or in many cases of conflict and reconciliation, it is difficult to delineate the strict line that exclusively differentiates between individual and collective or social memories. These two kinds of memory are intertwined and interlinked with each other. In this chapter the construct of memory is best conceptualized as collective memories referring to what is remembered, constructed, and shared by groups of people or communities. I used the following definition to describe the term collective memory “Collective memory is memory, image, and knowledge of the past that
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scholars is the essence of reconciliation and has a bidirectional relationship with collective memories. While forgiveness can foster reconciliation, it has to change the way we perceive our past or our collective memories. In this way, it is clear that sometimes our fervent need to achieve reconciliation can determine the way we remember the collective past, and this may be a strong motive to forgive. On the other hand, revealing the truth is also conceptualized as a core component of reconciliation. Among human rights activists, reconciliation presupposes that truth about the past must be made transparent to all. In reality this ideal cannot be easily implemented because revealing the “simple truth” about the past, though it may be true, would result in the collective shame of the community preventing them to reconcile. The other problem with the “simple truth” is in the case when there is a lack of objective history about the past, and revealing the truth about the past depends solely on memory. The problem associated with this is, whose memory? Usually each party has its own memory which may be selective, one sided, partial, and emotionally and politically charged. Revealing the truth in this case is not as simple as revealing the facts. To be considered as the reconciling truth, the truth about the past may be better conceptualized as an “appropriated truth” with processes of dialogue, compromise, and negotiation. Thus, revealing “the simple truth” that would perpetuate the protracted conflict may not be considered the best choice. In the case of the TRC in South Africa, the combination of legal approach (tribunal process) and disclosing the truth using the mechanism of storytelling was considered a compromise in negotiating the past. This effort was also seen as a means of pursuing justice, though according to Long and Brecke (2003), it was only a partial justice. A common practice in reconciliation is for the perpetrator or the current political regime to compensate the former victims. The compensation is also considered by the perpetrator an expression of remorse and recognition for the past suffering of the victims. In this case, reconciliation, expression of remorse, apology by the perpetrator on the one side and sincere forgiveness from the victim on the other side are considered part of the spirit of reconciliation. These components can foster the healing process, but the need for healing can also foster the willingness to forgive and make apologies. The process that underlies these interrelated reconciliation components is that of collective memory, the way the past is remembered. Expressing remorse, apologizing, and asking for forgiveness by the perpetrator and a willingness on the part of the victim to show mercy and forgiveness would depend on both sides’ past collective memories. That is why the process of reconciliation in a nutshell refers to people’s reconciliation of their memories.
are collectively recorded by individuals in a group. The memory is collectively shared, transmitted, and sustained through discursive processes (communication, language, writing, conversation, dialogue, discussion, etc.) or through bodily practices, such as ritual and commemoration, social movement. In this case, individual memory and collective memory complements each other in a sense that the processes are shared together through social sharing that will frame and direct perception and memory about each individual’s past, resulting in some kinds of narrative about the past in the group. The issue regarding collective memory involves not just what is remembered, but why that particular event and how is it remembered” (Muluk, 2004, p. 100).
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Thus, the model asserts that both perpetrator and victim must change their collective memories to achieve reconciliation. To do so, some political negotiations may be involved because the current political agenda for reconciliation calls for both parties to adjust their accounts of collective memory in a process of social exchange.
Distortion of Collective Memory The notion of “distortion” in collective memory presumes that certain memories are not accurate when we compare them with something that we consider as the “standard” (Schudson, 1995). Empirical studies on the accuracy of individual memory showed that bias and distortion may occur during the stages of sensory register, encoding, and retrieval. While the accuracy of individual memory is problematic as seen in eye-witness testimony, this issue is even more complex at the group level involving collective memory, where the reconstructive nature of this memory is more fluid and subject to many cultural, social, and political interests. In their review on the pattern of collective memory distortion, Baumeister and Hastings (1997) assert that as memories play an important role in defining a group’s identity, modifying some parts of these memories may serve as a tool to increase the group’s goals and needs, especially the need to enhance the group’s image. In addition, there is a tendency for the group to systematically distort their memory to enhance their positive self-image rather than to diminish it. Is it possible for a group to distort their collective memory in the reverse direction? While Baumeister and Hastings (1997) did not provide a simple answer to this question, certain conditions may make this possible, for example, how important are these memories for the survival of the group? If these memories can be exchanged for other needs that make life better in the future, why not? Baumeister and Hastings (1997) listed some possible strategies and mechanisms by which groups systematically distort their collective memory. The easiest and the most obvious way is by selective omission, where events that make the image of one’s social group negative are ignored or expunged from memory. A tactic that complements the mechanism of omission is the mechanism of fabrication, where besides selectively leaving out something that really happened, a group may also invent a “false memory” in which the group systematically fabricates something that did not happen. Sometimes, it is very difficult to fabricate a wholly false group memory, but it is relatively easy to take some aspects of a historical truth and enlarge them into a major, important myth for the sake of the group’s image. This mechanism is labeled by Baumeister and Hastings (1997) as exaggeration and embellishment. While these mechanisms are obvious, there are others that are more subtle, such as manipulating the associations between the facts and systematically making bias interpretations about the facts. As social and political events usually have multiple causes, by focusing on one cause and linking interpretation to that cause, or detaching it from other causes, the mechanism of distorting collective memory can be made more subtle.
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Baumeister and Hastings (1997) also pointed out another form of collective memory, that of blaming the enemy so that one’s own misdeeds can be minimized and attributed to the enemies. If one cannot blame one’s enemy or one’s victims, the best way is to attribute it to the circumstances. Another mechanism proposed is contextual framing, where groups systematically reduce the highly complex explanation into a simple one by framing it in a particular context that enhances the group’s self-image. In contrast to Baumeister and Hastings (1997), Schudson (1995) considers the distortion or reinterpretation of collective memories inevitable to some extent. According to him, the use of the term collective memory distortion is problematic and may not be justified because neither memories nor histories are objective, and securing a standard by which we can judge or measure the accuracy of memories without too much debate is almost impossible. The tendency to distort collective memory to some extent is natural due to the passage of time resulting in a loss of details and our own psychological need of distancing the past. Similar to Baumeister and Hastings (1997), Schudson (1995) also pointed out that distortion of collective memory is motivated by the group’s present needs and interests. Schudson (1995) labels it as instrumentalization in which the collective memory may be called up and shaped in an instrumental fashion to gain some current strategic end. Another way memories are subjected to distortion is in the nature of narrativization (Schudson, 1995), where they are encapsulated into certain types of cultural/social form, usually in the shape of a story or a narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. As the story is being narrated and socially shared among the community, some parts may be modified to make them more interpretable and interesting. While this forms the initial narrativization, there is also a second level of narrativization where a story is narrated about the past’s relation to the present (Schudson, 1995). With respect to reconciliation, can memories be altered (or distorted) in some ways so as to achieve a peace agreement?
In Search of Peace: Trading Off the Memories With this background, the reconciliation process in Tanjung Priok revealed several important findings. First, the primary motive that led to the victims’ willingness to reconcile with their past perpetrators was fostered by the psychological need to be released from the burden of past memories and the basic need of restoring social empowerment following victimization. For more than 15 years, they had kept their anger, hatred, and animosities in their collective memories not knowing how to cope with them. During this period of “silent memory,” the Suharto regime used tight controls to ensure that this event remained closed. The fall of the Suharto regime provided some hope of avenging their past perpetrators. However, the legal process using the mechanism of TRC no longer existed when the House of Representative abolished the act. Many enthusiastic human rights and political activists offered to help the
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victims to bring the former army officers to trial, but they were only doing so for their own political interests. Without clear guidelines on the legal and political process, the victims were uncertain about their future and how to end the burden of the past. One respondent expressed this frustration as follows: Have you ever thought how we have suffered, not knowing what to do about our future? We feel traumatized whenever we pass by the police or army office. We harbor hatred and vengeance towards the children of the police and army who were not responsible for this tragedy. We lost our jobs in the past, and are politically stigmatized. Our family lives are ruined. We need economic security. But the most important thing is we have to release this burden from our memory. When we decided to do the Islah (reconciliation) with Gen. Try, we feel we have an advantage; now we have a good relationship with him.
Second, the willingness to forgive was achieved by having frequent dialogue with their past enemies mediated by a neutral and well-respected third party. Before signing the peace agreement (the Islah charter) that was later announced to the public, a series of informal meetings were held with the representatives of the former military officials. The meetings were kept “secret” without media coverage to avoid political provocation. The first few meetings were filled with “emotional catharsis” in which the victims expressed their anger of the army, which gradually moved to sessions of narrating each other’s memory about the tragedy. These sessions resembled the truth-telling process but not in the formal sense as the reconciliation process was a “community voluntary reconciliation” without any formal procedure. What the victims wanted in this process was the recognition from their “former perpetrators” that they (the army) had committed a wrongdoing in the past, and this was reported by one of the respondents as follows: Of course, they sincerely ask for forgiveness in front of us. Whatever the reason they just admitted their past wrong doing, maybe in order to obey the highest political order. Gen. Try personally make a statement that there was some kind of procedure violation by his subordinate during the mob rally.
In the next series of sessions, they gradually accepted some form of apology from the perpetrators enabling them to forgive in the spirit of brotherhood motivated by the Islah principle ending the past conflict and restoring a harmonious relationship for the future. While the victims had to some extent learned to cope with their traumatic memories by the method of time distancing, this reconciliation finally brought closure to their healing process, as accounted by a respondent: I feel that the process of meeting in the beginning would end with some kind of “riots” between us, I mean among us there is high emotional tension at the time. But with help from the mediator gradually we tried to recount our own story about the past more calmly. In the following day, in the next meeting I felt my emotional burden released, I felt more relaxed in discussing about the past. I think we obtained some benefit from this process. We are not afraid anymore to meet the army or police officers or when I pass by the army or police officers.
Third, it was realized that as the healing effect of reconciliation took place, the process of accepting apologies and giving forgiveness was felt to be easier to achieve. In other words, the act of reconciling itself had an impact on healing that fostered the process of forgiving, as reported by one of the respondents:
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Before we agreed to do the reconciliation with Pak Try (the former Jakarta District’s Military Chief) and his friends, it was very difficult for us to forgive them. We were still in the state of seeking retribution. When the peace agreement was signed, some of us were still angry and did not agree with the position. But in the next few meetings after signing the Islah, I felt my feelings changed and I told them I was able to forgive them. I felt some of my past negative feelings gradually becoming neutral. I don’t know what you would call it, maybe it was healing.
The fourth-phase set of meetings were most important and interesting. The discussions were filled with the possibility of the former army officers showing their empathy for the suffering of the victims by offering monetary compensation, because victims had been indirectly marginalized economically. At the beginning of the process, the mediator, Nurcholis Madjid, asserted that the responsibility for compensation was with the government and legally possible only in the frame of a legal TRC. However, this was also possible based on the spirit of Muslim brotherhood, but it must be a voluntarily one. The discussions led to the establishment of a community foundation for the former victims of Tanjung Priok affiliated with the Islah charter. The foundation collected money from many resources, with the former army officers mobilizing their connections with the business sector to do so. As a result, the foundation had enough endowment to give to the members of this foundation the resources needed to set up small-scale businesses. The former victims affiliated with the foundation were also compensated by the former army officers with cash. Concurrently with this process, the public demand to try the former army officers was granted by the government. The public attorney general charged the former army officers responsible for shooting the demonstrators at the time; however, because of a lack of tangible evidence, the eye witnesses relied on their memories. Due to the period of “silent memory,” the details of what really happened such as who was responsible for the shooting of the demonstrators, the number of dead bodies and their mysterious burial, attribution of the tragedy (whether due to the irresponsible and aggressive demonstrators [government version] or gross human rights violation by the police and army [civil society version]) could not be ascertained. Some of the victims’ collective memories as they were narrated and recorded into “the unofficial document” of Tanjung Priok tragedy tended to resemble the human rights activists or civil society version. Some of this unofficial version had actually been published in 1998 without any authorship.3 A few of the victims had previously documented their narration of the event by writing them down by hand and/or typing, which they planned to publish to provide evidence of the military acting as a human rights violator. However, the change in the political situation prompted the option for them to reconcile.
3 For
more details about this book, see Tim Penyusun Pusat Studi dan Pengembangan Informasi (PSPI). (1998). Tanjung Priok berdarah, tanggung jawab siapa?: Kumpulan fakta dan data [The bloody Tanjung Priok, whose responsibility?: A collection of data and facts]. Gema Insani Press: Jakarta.
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Regarding the event, although the victims never explicitly asserted that they deliberately changed the content and attribution of the Tanjung Priok tragedy in favor of the army position, they admitted that there was a change in the content and in the way they attributed the incident as a consequence of the processes of forgiving and healing. On one occasion when we held a focus group discussion, they asserted that previously they were not able to see their past objectively without being emotionally aroused. They felt that the reconciliation process had forced them to contemplate and reflect on the tragedy. With this new frame and understanding, they agreed to change their attribution of the tragedy, from attributing the cause of the event to the army officers to the complex sociopolitical situation surrounding the event. An example of linking versus detaching strategy as proposed by Baumeister and Hastings (1997) was apparent here. The details of the dead bodies and improper burial were also modified into the content of their memories to the benefit of the army position. They proclaimed that they were no longer sure that they saw the army blindly shooting the demonstrators as this could have been done in self-defense when the demonstrators aggressively attacked the officers with knives and swords. Again, this supported the mechanism of selective omission and contextual framing as proposed by Baumeister and Hastings (1997), as one respondent described in the focus group discussion: Yes. . .maybe, if we see the number of dead bodies as was claimed by the activists, 400 or 500 people. In fact I never see that huge amount. The government claimed 40 people were dead. Maybe it was right, maybe not, but I never see and believe more than 100 people. . .See. . . we in this room saw that it was not completely true that the army shot blindly, I think we also provoked and attacked them with knives or swords or that has been prepared before by someone else that I don’t know. I believe that it was designed by political actors both maybe in the government side, or by the political opposition elite. We and our former army friends were only “the puppets”, they only followed orders, the director is the political elite.
From 2002 to 2004, a few of the former army officers were put on trial. As predicted, the majority of the victims’ testimonies were biased in favor of the army’s position. As a result, only the low-ranking officers were punished, albeit with “light” sentences. The fifth finding which was revealed in another focus group discussion showed that the victims were fully aware that they had a “strong political bargaining” based on their intact memories regarding the incident. Realizing this advantage, they were willing to trade off this memory for its benefit; first, changing the attribution of this event fostered healing and forgiving, and second, it was used as a bargaining tool to fulfill their basic human needs, as one respondent admitted: What’s wrong with that, they know we’ve suffered in this event. We have a gentlemen’s agreement that this kind compensation would benefit both of us. They did it to recognize our past suffering, although it wouldn’t be enough to compensate our entire past suffering. Yes, of course we try to help them in the court. But we try not to engineer the facts or lie to the public. We try not to “force the army into the corner” in the court. I think that this is a win-win solution. And remember my brother; (it was directed to me), in Islam with
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the spirit of Islah, which mean to reconcile in mutual respect and brotherhood, peace is the most important rather than what do you call? The truth?
This process of trading off the memories in the Tanjung Priok community reconciliation process fits the needs-based model of reconciliation proposed by Nadler and Shnable (2008). In this case, victims of the Tanjung Priok “tragedy” experience a threat to their identity. Similarly, the Indonesian military as powerful social actors and perpetrators also experience a threat to their identity as moral social actors. Before reconciliation (Islah), several failed attempts by the victims of the “tragedy” to seek some acknowledgment of the injustice done to them had left them feeling morally inferior and powerless, hindering the process of reconciliation. The downfall of Suharto’s authoritarian regime provided the impetus to start the process again. Both parties had their own agenda; the perpetrators wanted to avoid prosecution and possible jail time, while the victims were motivated by several needs. They wanted justice, but recognized the difficulty of really getting justice from the Indonesian system; they also wanted compensation, as well as reconciliation with the powerful military so that they no longer had to live in fear. In the end, the latter two motives (compensation and reconciliation) overruled the justice motive. The final resolution was highly pragmatic and highly Asian: there was no “crime and thus no punishment”; rather there was a behind-the-scenes, face-to-face process where not only compensation was paid, but memories were reconciled. The principle of Islah was used to legitimize the reconciliation process, and in doing so, the suffering of the victims was acknowledged through monetary compensation. At the same time the act of forgiveness by the victims sent a message of acceptance to the perpetrators despite their past actions. Thus, the perpetrators’ needs were also satisfied. The monetary compensation and victims’ forgiveness act as messages of social acceptance and empowerment, satisfying the perpetrators’ and victims’ emotional needs. From this perspective, the apology–forgiveness cycle is viewed as an act of social exchange in which each party provides to its adversary the psychological resources that ameliorate the specific threat to its identity.
Conclusions and Implications This chapter suggests that the construct of memory, especially in the form of collective memory, is a crucial factor in resolving social conflicts, particularly in reconciliation. The construct of memory relates to most of the components or spheres of reconciliation mentioned by many theories. Irrespective of the means to achieve reconciliation (e.g., monetary compensation, apology and forgiveness, public trials, etc.), resolving or trying to reconcile the contradictory collective memories and appropriating them to satisfy the needs of both parties are the key to reconciliation. This is so because the construct of collective memory is correlated with factors such as healing, forgiveness, apology, justice, and compensation as well as political and legal factors serving as legal or political justification. In some cases, the willingness to make peace through reconciliation using the bottom-up approach can be
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successfully done to resolve social conflict without any support from the political and legal aspects. But sometimes, as noted in some countries (like the South African TRC), the top-down approach is needed to mobilize the process of changing the collective memories of conflicting parties. The role of memories in the reconciliation process may be paradoxical in the sense that sometimes they can hinder the process of reconciliation (as in the case of Israel–Palestine, Northern Ireland), while at other times they can easily resolve the process (as found in this case and in other cases in Indonesia). The complex thing about memory is the fact that memory is related to identity, which lies at the core of basic human needs that are sometimes very difficult to be compromised or reconciled. Another lies in the fact that the nature of memory is a social and collective construct, subject to social and political processes. Usually, the more deep-rooted one’s group identity is in certain history, the more difficult it is to be reconciled if the conflict is about memories. In spite of this, one lesson that we can learn from the present chapter is that persisting with a one-sided and selective view of collective memory (as a form of social representation of history) would result in the ethos of conflict rather than one of peace. As suggested in the model of reconciliation that was used, successful reconciliation was measured by the extent to which transformation of collective memory was achieved. Some implications from these findings for the practice of peace psychology are as follows. First, to be successful, the peacebuilding effort (i.e., reconciliation) must be contextualized in our understanding of the social and cultural factors where the event takes place. For example, in Indonesia where the cultural values of communal harmony and responsibility are valued more than individual rights and recognitions, putting the collective goal first is the ultimate virtue. For many Indonesians, religious values guide their everyday life. That is why the principle of Islah that encourages people to forgive and restore relationship can be used to legitimize the reconciliation process. Once this is achieved, the historical truth can be revealed, but it must guarantee the individual’s rights and recognition. If the conflict is reevoked rather than reconciled, the notion of “truth” and pursuit of justice must go through the legal channels. The moral judgment of exchanging memories for economic compensation is acceptable with the goal of achieving sustainable peace. Second, a successful reconciliation must be able to fulfill basic human needs; for the essence of reconciliation is not only reconciling with the past, but restructuring the present for a better future.
References Asmal, K., Asmal, L., & Roberts, R. S. (1997). Reconciliation through truth: A reckoning of Apartheid’s criminal governance (2nd ed.). Cape Town, South Africa: David Philip Publishers. Bar-Tal, D. (2000). From intractable conflict through conflict resolution to reconciliation: Psychological analysis. Political Psychology, 21, 351–363. Bar-Tal, D. (2001). Why does fear override hope in societies engulfed by intractable conflict, as it does in the Israeli society? Political Psychology, 22, 601–627.
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Bar-Tal, D. (2007). Sociopsychological foundations of intractable conflicts. American Behavioral Scientist, 50, 1430–1453. Bar-Tal, D., & Bennink, G. H. (2004). The nature of reconciliation as an outcome and as a process. In Y. Bar-Siman-Tov (Ed.), From conflict resolution to reconciliation (pp. 11–38). Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press. Baumeister, R. F., & Hastings, S. (1997). Distortion of collective memory: How groups flatter and deceive themselves. In J. W. Pennebaker, D. Paez, & B. Rimé,. (Eds.), Collective memory of political events: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 277–293). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Burns, P. (1989). The post Priok trials: Religious principles and legal issues. Indonesian, 47, 61–88. Burton, J. (1990a). Conflict: Resolution and prevention. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Burton, J. (1990b). Conflict: Human needs theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cairns, E., & Roe, M. D (2003). The role of memory in ethnic conflict. Macmillan: Palgrave. Falk, E., (2001). South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission: A reckoning of psychology’s contribution. Unpublished dissertation. Wright Institute Graduate School of Psychology. Kelman, H. C. (1990a). Interactive problem-solving: A social-psychological approach to conflict resolution. In J. Burton & F. Dukes (Eds.), Conflict: Readings in management and resolution (pp. 199–215). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kelman, H. C. (1990b). Applying a human needs perspective to the practice of conflict resolution: The Israeli-Palestinian case. In J. Burton (Ed.), Conflict: Human needs theory (pp. 283–297). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Liu, J. H & Atsumi, T. (2008). Historical conflict and resolution between Japan and China: Developing and applying a narrative theory of history and identity. In T. Sugiman, K. J. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamada. (Eds.), Meaning in action: Constructions, narratives, and representations. New York: Springer. Long, W. J., & Brecke, P. (2003). War and reconciliation: Reason and emotion in conflict resolution. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Mellor, D., & Bretherton, D. (2003). Memories of aboriginal pasts and current conflicts. In E. Cairns & M. D. Roe, (Eds.), The role of memory in ethnic conflict. Macmillan: Palgrave. Merwe, V. D. (1999). The truth and reconciliation commission and community reconciliation: An analysis of competing strategies and conceptualizations. Unpublished dissertation. George Mason University: Fairfax, Virginia. Mubarok, A. (2001). Reconciliation: The Quranic perspective. Islamic Millenium, 1, 63–69. Muluk, H. (2004). Ingatan kolektif dan rekonsiliasi: Studi kasus pada korban tragedi politik Tanjung Priok pendukung gerakan islah. (Collective memory and reconciliation: A case study of Tanjung Priok’s political tragedy victims who support reconciliation effort). Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Depok: University of Indonesia. Nadler, A., & Shnabel, N. (2008). Instrumental and socioemotional paths to intergroup reconciliation and the needs-based model of socioemotional reconciliation. In A. Nadler, T. E. Malloy & J. D. Fisher (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup reconciliation (pp. 37–56). New York: Oxford University Press. Rouhana, N. (2004). Identity and power in the reconciliation on national conflict. In A. H. Eagly, R. M. Baron, & V. L. Hamilton (Eds.), The social psychology of group identity and social conflict (173–187). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Schudson, M. (1995). Dynamic of distortion in collective memory. In D. L. Schacter (Ed.), Memory distortion: How minds, brains, and societies reconstruct the past (pp. 346–364). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shnabel, N., & Nadler, A. (2008). A needs-based model of reconciliation: Satisfying the differential emotional needs of victim and perpetrator as a key to promoting reconciliation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 116–132. Shriver, D. W. Jr. (1995). An ethic for enemies: Forgiveness in politics. Oxford: University Press. Tint, B. (2002). Collective memory and conflict resolution. Unpublished dissertation. Melbourne, VIC: University of Melbourne.
Contested Discourses on Violence, Social Justice, and Peacebuilding Among Indonesian Muslims Yayah Khisbiyah
Abstract While an overwhelming amount of literature discusses radical-violent Islam, only a few include peaceful Islam. Numerous narratives on religious radicalism support similar arguments: religious radicalism can spring from the perceived or real injustice combined with the militant religious interpretation, leading to hatred of out-groups. When the in-group dynamics is “right,“ in light of ongoing unresolved grievances, these combined factors can in turn trigger acts of violence in the name of religions. But, in reality, Muslims’ views on social issues are nonmonolithic and occupy a wide range of perspectives. This chapter investigates the polarizing as well as converging public discourses on issues of violence, social justice, and peacebuilding among three Indonesian Muslim streams, namely conservative-exclusionist, moderate, and progressive-inclusionist. Special emphasis is given to the interplay between larger sociocultural political contexts and smaller collective psychosocial dynamics. Such views do not occur in a sociopolitical vacuum: global and local power-relations, geopolitical and cultural-historical contexts have shaped Muslim discourses significantly. This chapter searches for discursive spaces for constructive dialogue and reconciliation among highly contesting and diverse Muslim groups, as well as between Muslim and nonMuslim groups. Both direct and structural violence are covered, on the assumption that for constructive dialogue and cooperation across civilizations to happen, both levels of violence need to be redressed equally.
Indonesia: State, Society, and Religion in Tension Religion has been a highly pervasive aspect of human societies and has played an important role in the life of human beings. At the individual-personal level, religion instils a sense of purpose and meaning in life and produces morally conscious believers. At the societal level, religion has been instrumental in aiding the progress of human civilizations throughout the globe. Religious beliefs have played a key role in many social movements to alter unjust systems. Islamic religious leaders (mullahs) in Iran, for instance, played a key role in overthrowing the despotic, C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_7, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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authoritarian imperial rule of Shah Reza Pahlevi in 1979. Similarly, the Catholic priests and bishops in the Philippines helped overthrow Ferdinand Marcos’ totalitarian government in 1986. Many church leaders, to give another example, also played a vital role in the fight to abolish slavery and later to promote the civil rights movement in the United States (Giddens, 2001). Religion, however, might also become a source of authoritarianism and tyranny. Religious leaders in the United States had earlier given their support to the practice of slavery based on their religious ideals. Throughout the history of human beings, much bloodshed through wars and conflicts has resulted from adherence to religious causes (Appleby, 2000; Kimball, 2002). Religion, as many scholars have noted, can give rise to divisive influences such as hatred and conflicts (Merkl, 1997; Rapoport, 1989). This darker side of religion is particularly associated with the intolerant, radical side of religious interpretations, as manifested in religious-nuanced intolerance and violence. This double-sided phenomenon of religion has consequently led many of us to ask one of the most puzzling questions about religion: “In our current ‘runaway world’ full of risks and uncertainties, under what psychosocial conditions does religion inspire peace and justice, and under what conditions does it promote enmity and violence?” In the aftermath of events such as the 9/11 attacks, bombings in Madrid, London, and Bali, and chains of suicidal bombings in the Middle East war-torn regions, recent academic and media discourse on the so-called religious radicalism has accused Islam of being a breeding ground of violence and terrorism, despite most evidence showing that radicalism can spring from any religion. Among others, Lewis (2002) asserted that Muslim confrontation with Europe in premodern history has continued to the modern era, with Muslims showing a defensive and hostile attitude toward things Western. Interestingly, the Muslim world responded to accusations by challenging the definition of Islamic radicalism as an invention of the West, arguing that radicalism spreads with the rise of modernization, post-colonialism, capitalism, and unjust foreign affair policies exercised by a handful of strong, developed Western countries against Muslim-majority countries (Said, 1994). Ali (2003) added that chaotic social and political conditions, compounded by the rigid interpretation of Islamic teachings, had provided fertile ground for radicalism. While much attention on Islam has been given to countries in the Middle East, one can easily forget that Indonesia, located in Southeast Asia, is actually the world’s biggest Muslim country. Islam in Indonesia has been regarded as more moderate and tolerant in nature, in comparison, say, to that in the Middle East or South Asia. The vast majority of 200 million Indonesian Muslims, for instance, have been said to remain tolerant as they have been traditionally described, even in the midst of increasing religious radicalism in the region and in the global arena. The World Values Survey in 11 Muslim-majority societies including Indonesia found that in all, but Pakistan, public support for democracy was equal to or even bigger than that in Western countries (Inglehart & Norris, 2004). In Indonesia, Muslim civil society groups played significant roles during the final years of the Suharto regime and afterwards promoted democracy through raising religious arguments to support pluralism, women’s rights, and good governance (Hefner, 2005).
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In spite of evidence for this religious tolerance, many see that the notion of “tolerant Islam” in Indonesia is currently being challenged rigorously. There has been an increasing tension between the majority view and small groups that have pushed for more scriptural, literal, and orthodox interpretations of Islam. The media has cited examples of violent incidents that have been occurring one after another. To name a few, the “sweeping” and eviction of Americans staying in hotels in the city of Solo in 2000, the attack on and destruction of night spots regarded as “places of sin” (tempat maksiat) such as discotheques and pubs in 2001, the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, and the bombing of churches around Christmas time in volatile cities like Poso in the Moluccas. More recent examples of Indonesian society and religion being in heated tension are the fatwas or religious edicts issued at the end of July 2005 by the MUI or the Indonesian Council of Ulama (religious scholars, literally means “those who know”) banning principles of pluralism, secularism, and liberal interpretations of Islam as haram (unlawful, and therefore sinful). The MUI also issued another fatwa deeming one of many Islamic denominations, Ahmadiyah, as a heretical sect for believing that there was another Prophet after the acclaimed last prophet Muhammad, namely, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from India. These fatwas stirred a mixed response and instigated highly contested discourse revolving around the issues of religious purity, freedom of religion, violence and nonviolence, human rights, and interfaith harmony. Some groups indicated support for the fatwas, some others challenged them, and a few abused the fatwas by engaging in physical confrontation and other forms of direct violence, citing the 2005 fatwa as justification for their actions. For instance, in 2005, militant groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam) destroyed Ahmadiyah mosques and evicted family members of Ahmadiyah from their homes and neighborhoods. Most recently, on June 1, 2008, Islamic Troops Command (Komando Laskar Islam) physically attacked a group called National Alliance for Freedom of Faith and Religion, who marched to promote religious diversity and interfaith harmony in the context of “diverse yet united Indonesia.” The latter incident was followed by the issuance by the government of a joint ministerial decree reprimanding and instructing the Ahmadiyah sect to end their religious activities and interpretations – under increasing pressure from the MUI and hard-liner Islamic groups. These controversial fatwas and government policy have heightened tensions and frictions between the state and religion and among communities across subcultures and faiths. In particular, these fatwas have deepened divisions within Muslim communities, especially among the conservative, the moderate, and the liberal groups, leading to further violent incidents. Respect for diversity and pluralism has indeed been experiencing turbulence in the modern history of Indonesian Islam, particularly after the downfall of Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in 1997 (Bruinessen, 2002). With Suharto’s downfall after more than three decades in power came a euphoric influx of freedom of the press, as well as freedom of Islamist expressions, which were previously suppressed. The prevailing conservative Muslim attitudes after reformasi have quickly been leaning toward identifying Islam with Arabia, so that conservative Muslims have little respect for differing cultures that cannot be put in one box with Arab
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Islam. The cultural contents and expressions of “the other” are accordingly often disparaged as “un-Islamic.” Many social analysts worry that these self-righteous and self-glorifying worldviews may have contributed to the sharpening of intolerance and hatred, as shown in the heightened demonization of one socioreligious group by another and the institution of religious cleavages in terms of “us” and “them” (Khisbiyah, 2004). Nowadays, with the expansion of the press and the fascination with the Internet, these messages are also extensively delivered to a wider public sphere – particularly young, educated, urban Muslims – via numerous Muslim magazines, websites, and cyber discussion groups that have mushroomed in the last five years or so. The research reported in this chapter is an investigation of discourse in three influential Muslim printed media on issues related to religious radicalism. Next I will briefly discuss the psychology of religious radicalism.
Psychology of Religious Radicalism Issues of religious intolerance and radicalism emerge at a particularly intriguing time in the history of humanity. In particular since 9/11, these issues are happening at an interesting time in the history of the world’s religions, and at the same time, in the history of social sciences as well. The first is marked by a revolutionary religious spirit around the world (Armstrong, 2003; Juergensmeyer, 2000; Kressel, 2002) and the second in the social sciences themselves, at a time when advances in the methodological directions of the social sciences are apparent (Lincoln & Guba, 2000; Philips & Hardy, 2002; Ratner, 1997). Research in psychology on religious-nuanced violence and radicalism, particularly on incidents carried out by Muslim violent extremists, has grown rapidly since 9/11. This has significantly contributed to the availability of different pictures and more varied information about the psychopolitical dynamics of religious-related violence and radicalism. However, a limitation is that much of this research has used clinical and personality psychology lenses and has focused on the personality profiles or on the individual psyches of the perpetrators of terrorism. This microlevel analysis of religious radicalism has found that the perpetrators of violence and terrorism are actually – contrary to popular belief – not mentally disturbed individuals driven by insanity to massacre large numbers of innocent lives. Instead, they are just normal individuals. The majority of them have a fair level of higher education, do not have specific psychological illnesses such as psychoticism or neurosis, and are even known as sociable people by their families and neighbors (Ellens, 2002; Hood, Hill, & Williamson, 2005; Post, 2005; Wagner, 2004). Only a small amount of research has investigated this topic with a different psychological lens, namely social, cultural, and political psychology. McCauley (2004), for instance, suggests that even “mega-killers” such as Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, or Mao did not suffer from any grave mental illnesses. The American young men who dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the radical Islamists who massacred the innocents – along with themselves – in the 9/11 attack on New York’s Twin
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Towers, and the bombers in Madrid, Bali, and London were mostly well educated, economically privileged, highly disciplined, and effective individuals. McCauley argued that what drives them to commit these acts against humanity is a combination of ideology and intense small-group dynamics. He asserts that terrorists, like most of us, are capable of doing terrible things to others when the group dynamics are right. Every normal person, McCauley further argues, believes in something greater than himself/herself, something that is more important than life itself. And religion, or an ethnic group or a nation or even an atheistic ideology such as communism, can be an explicit answer to the questions: “Why is my life worth more? Why is my death going to mean more than just cessation?” Any cause will do so, as long as it has a future in which a loyal and contributing member of that community can see himself/herself living in the memory of the group that supports the cause. Contributory psychosocial factors such as enhanced group loyalty, sensitive perception of mutual histories, authoritarian personality, totalitarian political system, right-wing ideology, and the dehumanization of the enemy are likely to be the causes of violence and protracted conflicts (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Altemeyer, 1988; Arendt, 1973; Bar-Tal & Teichman, 2005; Deutsch, 1985; Staub, 1989). Additionally, in seeking an explanation for the causes of violent conflicts engaged in by groups defined by social identity, including religious identity, Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) identified five core beliefs of individuals and their parallels to the collective worldviews of groups that may operate to trigger or constrain violent struggles. These five beliefs play significant roles in driving individuals and groups to think of and treat others with a sense of hatred and enmity and in turn lead to conflicts and acts of violence. Eidelson and Eidelson describe the five beliefs as follows. (1) A belief of superiority revolves around a person’s or a group’s enduring conviction that he/she is, or they are, better than other people in important ways such as moral superiority, chosenness, entitlement, and special destiny. On that note, Volkan (1988) previously used the term “chosen glories,” which can be used to derogate and demonize other groups and to mobilize support for a nationalist or sectarian agenda. (2) A belief of injustice revolves around perceived mistreatment by specific others or by the world at large; the in-group has a strong conviction that it has significant and legitimate grievances against another group. And as stated in earlier research by Horowitz (1985) and Staub (1989), this mindset in turn can mobilize powerful and violent collective insurgencies. (3) A belief in vulnerability revolves around a person’s or group’s conviction that he/she is or they are perpetually living in harm’s way. Perception of threat and fears about the well-being and the future of one’s own group can lead to heightened in-group solidarity. The shared feeling of “we-are-inthis-fate-together” is heightened, and this, in turn, can lead to hostility toward the source of threat. (4) Distrust focuses specifically on perceptions of out-groups and revolves around beliefs that the other is untrustworthy and harbors malign intentions toward the in-group, generating prejudice and suspicion against the other, particularly to those perceived as the oppressors. (5) Helplessness is when people believe that nothing they do will make a difference. The worldview of helplessness describes
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a collective mindset of powerlessness and dependency, which can prevent the emergence of a sense of collective efficacy and yet strengthen the motivation to confront the perceived oppressors. Moghaddam (2005) investigated the psychological processes leading to terrorism and used the analogy of a staircase to conceptualize the terrorist act as the final step on a narrowing staircase. In his metaphor, terrorists are ordinary individuals who feel deprived and unfairly treated and therefore are prone to recruitment into terrorist organizations. They step onto staircases made up of intense group dynamics and particular ideological beliefs. These individuals believe that their voice is unheard in the society and are motivated by their leaders to displace aggression onto out-groups, which they disparage as evil. Moghaddam’s six-floor staircase to terrorism is as follows: (ground floor) the majority of people have perceived deprivation, (first floor) people perceive options to fight unfair treatment, (second floor) displacement of aggression, (third floor) “moral engagement” occurs as people struggle to achieve the ideal society, (fourth floor) solidification of categorical thinking and the perceived legitimacy of the terrorist organization, and (fifth floor) sidestepping inhibitory mechanisms and engaging in an act of terror. The current study does not investigate the mind and behavior of terrorists, namely, those who reside on the highest level of the staircase. Instead, borrowing Moghaddam’s metaphor, this research is about individuals and groups who reside on the lower rungs of the staircase: individuals and groups who are normal, yet perceive some sense of injustice and consequently may try to find alternative solutions to help create a more just and peaceful world by using their religious ideals. In particular, this study is concerned with exploring Indonesian Muslims’ ideas and perceptions of issues of violence, social justice, and peacebuilding, as represented by Muslim opinions and discourses in three different streams of Muslim popular magazines and bulletins. It is worth mentioning at this point that research on Islam in Indonesia in the context of international scholarship has been growing in the past few decades. Among the many manifestations of the important aspects of Islam in Indonesia, political Islam and Islamic radicalism have been enjoying more attention from scholars interested in Indonesian studies as well as Islamic studies (Johns, 1987). However, research on these topics has primarily been conducted using approaches from theology, sociology, and political science. A psychological approach, in particular one drawn from peace psychology is under-used, despite the vast potential of this new subdiscipline for making a significant contribution to scholarly discussion on this issue. Based on existing literature review, a few gaps have been identified: 1. Previous studies focused on “explicit-expressions” of religious radicalism, namely direct violence and terrorism, with a spirit driven by the pre-text of “war on terrorism,” but not much on the “formative psychosocial causes” of religious radicalism (Marsella & Moghaddam, 2004). 2. There are risks of cultural bias in conducting research on Islamic radicalism, as most researchers use “Western” cultural assumption and methods.
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3. Much research on the topic of Islamic radicalism is influenced by the notion of “clash of civilizations” (Muslims vs. non-Muslims), not much by “clash within civilization” or “the battle within Islam” (among Muslim subgroups, e.g., between the so-called extremist group and the moderate one). 4. Only a few studies examine lay peoples’ psychosocial processes (most study the elites/leaders). 5. There is little, if any, research yet that uses a peace psychology approach to Indonesian Islam.
A Note on the Method of Study In order to fill the research gaps stated above, and with the background of recent sociopolitical developments previously mentioned, this study aimed at investigating the psychosocial dynamics of religious radicalism as well as religious moderation by means of studying Muslim media discourse on the issues of violence, social justice, and peacebuilding among Indonesian Muslims. While radicalism can arise in any religion, this research focuses on Islam, as it has been assumed to have a significant influence in shaping the psychopolitical dynamics of Indonesian pluralistic society. The study utilizes content analysis of public statements and news coverage released in influential Islamic printed media whose aims are to construct and deconstruct realities in the minds of their readers and audiences. Muslim society in Indonesia is fragmented into many subgroups. Literature on Indonesian Muslims suggests that there are at least three distinct categories. The first is usually described by many scholars, uneasily, for a lack of a better term, as “Radical Muslims” (Azra, 2001) who adhere to scriptural-orthodox theology closely and do not feel the need to contextualize Islamic teachings in relation to contemporary development of the world. Radical Muslims are often perceived as less tolerant toward others who differ in faiths and lifestyles which the former regard as un-Islamic. The second is described as “Liberal Muslims” (Anwar, 2004) or “Progressive Muslims” (Safi, 2003), who adhere to scriptural theology and yet challenge literal interpretations of Islamic tenets that are thought to be incompatible with the current dynamics of human civilizations. Progressive Muslims are context oriented, appreciate diversity, and promote transformative ideas of Islam. In between these two streams lie moderate Muslims, who adhere closely to scriptural theology while embracing the middle way of Islam, are tolerant, and see Islam and modernity as compatible. Empirically these three categories are not rigidly or diametrically separated from each other, but rather “fluid” in their manifestations within the real individuals and collective groups. For instance, Muslims who hold on to their religious fundamental beliefs such as rejecting alcohol, pork, extramarital sex, or wearing a veil or head cover (hijab or jilbab) do not necessarily possess prejudiced attitudes or behave violently toward others who differ in their beliefs and religious practice. Muslims who confess that they subscribe to moderate or progressive Islam do not necessarily
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agree to what “the West” does with its unjust foreign policies, particularly those exercised in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine. Having considered existing literature and yet with the reservation that I have explained, I refer to more orthodox, scripture-oriented Muslim individuals and groups that promote purification of Islam and avoid outside influences as “Conservative-Exclusionist Muslims.” And to refer to more open, contextually oriented, inclusionist Muslim individuals and groups that appreciate differences and promote democratic ideas of Islam, I chose the term “Progressive-Inclusionist Muslims.” Three media representing three streams of Indonesian Islam were chosen: 1. Sabili magazine, representing conservative-exclusionist Muslims. Sabili’s slogan: Walking the righteous path toward Allah’s blessings (Meniti Jalan Menuju Mardhotillah). Sabili’s circulation is 90,000 copies, published biweekly in 1983, but then immediately banned by the Suharto’s New Order government. Sabili reclaimed its rights to publish in 1993. The magazine is distributed all over Indonesia. 2. Suara Muhammadiyah or Muhammadiyah Voice magazine, representing moderate Muslims, with a slogan Deepening and Enlightening (Meneguhkan dan Mencerahkan). Suara Muhammadiyah’s circulation is 40,000 copies, published biweekly since 1915, and distributed all over Indonesia. 3. Al-Ikhtilaf bulletin, representing progressive-inclusionist Muslims, with a slogan Managing diversity, harvesting nation’s blessings (Mengelola Perbedaan, Menuai Rahmat Kebangsaan). Ikhtilaf’s circulation is 31,500 copies, published weekly since 2000, and distributed mainly in Java in 30 cities. The period covered by the study was between September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attack on New York’s Twin Towers marked the heightened tensions and conflicts between Muslim societies and the West (and later within Muslim societies themselves) to September 2005 when the collection of printed media was completed. The limited time frame does not mean that the years outside the time frame are totally ignored, for knowledge and collective memories of many Muslims, for instance, about the Crusades between Muslims and Christians in the 17th century and the ongoing Israeli–Palestine violent conflicts, may still be used as a point of reference in seeing the other in the historical context. I chose events that represent two types of violence often addressed by the discipline of peace studies – direct and structural violence – covered by the three media which occurred during the period of the study, domestically within Indonesia as well as internationally: Domestic: • Direct violence: For example, Bali bombings, sectarian conflict in the Moluccas islands, and attacks on heretic/minority groups.
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• Structural violence: For example, local socioeconomic problems such as power asymmetry, systemic injustice, poverty, corruption, unemployment, and discrimination. International: • Direct violence: For example, the 9/11 attack, US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ongoing Israel–Palestine conflicts. • Structural violence: For example, global socioeconomic problems such as the wide gap of economic prosperity between the “North” and the “South,” hegemony of the “West,” and globalization. Special emphasis was given in the analysis to the interplay between the power relations in larger sociopolitical contexts with collective psychosocial factors in shaping the discourse reflected in the three media. Forty-two editorials and headline articles addressing issues of direct and structural violence as mentioned above were chosen for analysis. In line with the objectives of the study, I chose editorials and articles whose contents clearly represent discourse on violence, social justice, and peacebuilding that revolve around the issues of direct and structural violence. This study is concerned with answering the following broad questions: 1. What discourse related to issues of violence, nonviolence, social justice, and peacebuilding among three Indonesian Muslim groups has taken place after 9/11? 2. What issues in the discourse are polarized, and how do they influence tensions and conflicts among the three Muslim groups and between Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups? 3. What are the convergences of issues in the discourse, and how do they bear on possible dialogue and collaboration among the three Muslim groups and between Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups?
Social Constructionist Psychology and Peace Psychology The study employs social constructionist psychology and peace psychology as theoretical frameworks to understand the above issues under investigation. This section will briefly describe these two frameworks. Social constructionist psychology is grounded in the subdiscipline of critical psychology and much influenced by the work of psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault and sociologists such as Noam Chomsky and Anthony Giddens in order to examine ideologies and power relations involved in discourse (Potter & Wetherell, 1987). Social constructionist psychology was born to respond to the deficiency of the mainstream psychology’s microlevel, individual approaches to present the subject “as a reasoning, acting being” by emphasizing the
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importance of both social structure and individual agency (Gergen, 1985; Leledakis, 1995). According to Nightingale and Cromby (1999), social constructionist psychology focuses on language and discourse as representations of social constructs and acknowledges that individuals are fundamentally enmeshed within social, cultural, and historical processes, while also accounting adequately for other vital aspects of the human condition, particularly the notions of the self, embodiment, materiality, and power. Danziger (1997) describes two types of social constructionist psychology: a “dark” version, which attends to issues of power and subjectivity and which is rooted in the work of Foucault, and a “light” version, which attends to the minutiae of discourse and social processes and is descended from speech act theory, ethnomethodology, and deconstruction. According to Parker (1998), social constructionist psychology tries to explain the mechanisms of production and reproduction of social structures within the individual and addresses the ontological relationship between agency and structure and its implications in the reproduction of social practices. Furthermore, social constructionist psychology emphasizes the importance of sociocultural and political forces (e.g., asymmetry in power relations as root causes for economic and sociopolitical grievances) that function as geohistorical underlying contexts for the issues under study. Meanwhile, peace psychology emerged as a distinct area of research and practice when the preeminent concern was the prevention of nuclear war during the Cold War. According to Christie (2006), the focal concerns of peace psychologists are now global in scope and nuanced by geohistorical contexts and the distinction between direct or episodic violence and structural violence coined by one of the founding fathers of peace studies, Johan Galtung (1996). The first type of violence injures or kills people directly, while the latter deprives people of basic need satisfaction and thus in turn kills too (albeit slowly). Khisbiyah and Muluk (2005) identify some distinct features of peace psychology that might be of relevance to this study. First, peace psychology deals with many levels of explanation: from individuals and groups to international societies. Second, peace psychology is open to both quantitative and qualitative methods. Third, peace psychology tries to integrate both scholarship and activism to help peace promotion. Fourth, it is culturally relevant for peace psychologists trained in developed countries who adopt Western-style academic traditions to be provided with choices ranging from universalism to relativism and acknowledging both ethic and emic aspects. From the perspective of peace psychology, the utilization of violence can be argued to be not merely an indication of psychological and moral failure, but also at least two other fundamental failures (Khisbiyah, 2004). First, the failure of state societies to establish social justice and eliminate structure-based inequalities in accommodating the wide range of needs and interests of diverse communities. Second, the failure of state societies to appreciate pluralism and multiculturalism in the local and international systems, despite growing levels of interdependence worldwide. The first failure has deepened the sociopolitical grievances of marginalized
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communities, while the latter – manifested in part in the form of widespread stereotyping, prejudice, and religious intolerance – has contributed to fragmentation and division of communities around the world. Together, these failures have contributed to intergroup fault lines characterized by conflict and violence at local as well as regional and global levels. In addressing the complex challenges of resolving conflicts, Sanson and Bretherton (2001) earlier emphasized that peace psychologists need to develop more sophisticated models of analyzing conflict to recognize its multilevel and multiparty nature. Two of the suggestions proposed by Sanson and Bretherton are as follows: first, to articulate more clearly the role that conflict resolution has in sustaining interdependent relationships; second, to conduct more research into multiple perspective taking and the development of multiple, flexible, fluid identities which link different human groups among themselves and between human groups with the natural environment. In other words, peace psychology’s orientation is normative in that it seeks both understanding and emancipation. Social constructionist psychology and peace psychology are both used in this study for two main reasons. First, they possess a value orientation that aims to use psychological knowledge to build a more just and peaceful world, through both the prevention and amelioration of violent episodes and structural violence (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001). Second, they provide a framework for integrating both episodes and structures in understanding violence and peace. In analyzing the psychosocial dynamics of violence – both direct and structural – the two frameworks take into account the macrolevel systems that shape individuals and collective human societies. Scholars may begin with the individual as the unit of analysis. The individual, however, whether an ordinary citizen or an elite actor, is understood to be operating in wider sociocultural and political contexts that affect behavioral responses directly and interactively. Given the importance of studying this topic, peace psychology in particular can therefore make a significant contribution to understanding this topic by offering an alternative explanation of the psychosocial processes of religious tolerance and intolerance, of religious moderation, and religious radicalism. It is hoped that research results would contribute to the understanding and exploration of new endeavors aiming at promoting peace, social justice, and inclusive attitudes in the light of cultural and religious diversities in Indonesia as well as in global pluralistic societies. Further it is hoped that this research would be relevant to the Indonesian and Asia Pacific contexts today, as our diverse societies experience increasing collective sociopolitical grievances, intergroup frictions, and reciprocal religious demonization that could in turn lead or escalate to deadly violent conflicts.
Preliminary Results Preliminary results of this ongoing research are shown in Table 1. A range of issues significantly related to direct and structural violence have come up from the three media which are clustered into four categories, that is, construction of enemies,
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Table 1 Recurring themes in three Muslim media regarding enemy, violence, social justice, and intergroup relations Themes Construction of enemy
Conservative (Sabili)
America’s and Zionist’s conspiracy, grand design to weaken and destroy Islam; US hegemony is arrogance Muslim hypocrites, infidels within; “Melayu-Zionist”: domesticated, double-faced Muslims cooperating with Jews and Christians to ruin Islam Discourse Islam rejects all types of of violence terrorism, and there’s no benefit in using violence, but it’s acceptable for defense purpose Hatred bombs are aimed to trap Muslims; hence, we have the rights to strike back as defense Intergroup relations: Abolish the devilish intrafaith and danger of “SIPILIS” interfaith relations (secularism, pluralism, and liberalism) Let’s hunt down and abolish heresy
Moderate (Suara) US invasion ruins the world order
Threats from those who hate Islam from within Muslim individuals and groups
Progressive (Al-Ikhtilaf) US invasion in Iraq and Israel occupation in Palestine do injustice to innocent civilians –
Islam is nonviolent, Fighting is a peaceful, and full of destructive dead tolerance and end; reject violence compassion based on religion; violence only breeds violence – –
Be wary of the danger of liberal morality and liberal thinking of Islam
–
We need a new Muslims shall paradigm in celebrate diversity interfaith relations; in line with genuine diversity is Islamic spirit imperative; we must modeled by the be open and honest. Prophet Boycott Western Hegemony of the USA Dialogue and conflict products; Muslims is a new resolution between unite to fight back the imperialism; the Islam and the West USA and Zionism USA should listen is possible to critique by international communities (continued)
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Table 1 (continued) Themes
Social justice
Another salient theme: autocritique of Islam/Muslims
Progressive (Al-Ikhtilaf)
Conservative (Sabili)
Moderate (Suara)
Christian missionary (Kristenisasi) is to eradicate Islam from the world –
Kristenisasi is violation against human rights
–
–
The need to implement multicultural education and teaching tolerance in our schools Social justice for domestic helpers, labors, peasants, the dhu’afa (the poor and disenfranchised); state-sponsored injustice is as bad as terrorism Eradicate corruption, poverty, and discrimination against the poor and minorities
–
Promoting the spirit of empowering al-Ma’un (orphans and the poor); social justice for all
Muslims shall facilitate positive social change; Islamic transformative spirit to rebuild the nation, combat corruption The need to renew Islamic paradigms and ethics to improve the quality of ummah and Islamic worlds
Abolishing corruption, promoting good governance, clean and responsible sociopolitical practice
Moderate Islam is a choice; Ijtihad (reinterpreting Islamic principles) suffers inertia; Muslims need self-reflection to improve themselves
The danger of truth claims and worshiping the religion as an end in itself
discourse of violence, othering “the others” in intrafaith and interfaith relations, and aspirations for social justice. The study identified another salient theme that was discussed by all three media, that is, auto critique of Islam. I will describe these salient issues in the following sections.
Construction of the Enemy Past research indicates that Islamic radical groups identified zionism, secularism, atheism, syncretism, Christianity, liberal Islam, the West, the USA, and opportunism
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as enemies of Islam (Ahnaf, 2004; Bashari, 2002; Husaini & Hidayat, 2002; Prasetyo, 2002). My research results confirmed the findings from previous research as such. And in addition to those, new enemies have been marked by conservativeexclusionist’s Sabili, that is, what it calls Melayu-Zionist, referring to Muslims of fellow Malay ethnic group whom they accuse of being hypocritical for cooperating with the Jews and Christians to ruin Islam from within. Sabili also provocatively labeled individuals and groups who support the ideas of secularism, pluralism, and liberalism (of Islam) as espousing grave satanic danger. The proponents of these ideas are dubbed as “enemies of Allah,” and denigrated with pejorative words meant to sound similar to genital disease. For example, “SIPILIS” stands for secularism, pluralism, and liberalism. The practice of converting Muslims to Christians – known as “Kristenisasi” or forced proselytization – by some radical Christian groups such as Pentecostals and Evangelists is seen by Sabili as an effort by all Christians, regardless of their denomination, to eradicate Islam from Earth. Sabili summons its readers to hunt down and destroy heretic groups such as Islam Jama’ah, Syi’ah, Inkar Sunnah, Salamullah, and Ahmadiyah. Lastly, Sabili firmly believes in conspiracy theory; that is, the West, led by the USA and supported by its allies such as Britain and Australia, has a grand design to destroy Islam. These antagonistic perceptions of enemies reflected, for instance, from Sabili’s statements such as “Hunting down heretic sects,” “NonMuslim heinous conspiracy to kill Islam,” “The eternal and biggest enemies of Islam: Jews and Christians,” “The West will always try to destroy Islam,” and “Liberal Muslims are slaves of the infidels to ruin Islam from inside.” Interestingly, Suara Muhammadiyah, publicly regarded as a moderate Islamic magazine, also warns its readers about the danger of liberal morality and liberal thinking in Islam and the threats from fellow Muslims who hate Islam from within. Al-Ikhtilaf is the only one out of these three media which does not talk about fellow Muslims betraying Islam from inside. Instead, Al-Ikhtilaf praises Muslims who revitalize Islamic teachings according to modern contexts and contemporary challenges, such as promoting religious pluralism as a means of upholding universal human rights, as contributing to the progress of modern and humane Islamic civilization. Sabili is not alone in branding the USA as the enemy. Suara also criticized American’s neocolonialism and hegemony in “the rest of the world” including Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq and regarded Kristenisasi as violating human rights. The difference is, while Sabili uses inflammatory and highly aggressive accusations, Suara uses a calm academic style of language and analysis and provides sound supporting data to back its points. Criticism of the hegemony of the West is also voiced by progressive-inclusionist Muslims represented by Al-Ikhtilaf, whose open mind believes in Islamic doctrines and precepts that appreciate differences and diversity. While Al-Ikhtilaf stresses the importance of tolerance and respect for the other and otherness, the bulletin also speaks solemnly about the erroneous US invasions of Iraq, Israel, and Palestine that have shed much blood of countless innocent civilians. The difference between Al-Ikhtilaf and Sabili and Suara is while the latter two respectively stop at accusa-
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tion and criticism, the former recommends dialogue and conflict resolution between Islam and the West and even suggests reconciliation between Islam and communism, an ideology disparaged by the majority of Indonesian Muslims as an enemy of Islam for embracing atheism and militant socialist agendas.
Discourse on Violence Sabili frequently exposes violent treatments suffered by Muslims committed by “they” and the “others,” referring to those who have been historically perceived as hating Islam since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, namely, the Jews and Christians. Nowadays the identity of Jews and Christians are extended into all “Americans,” “Israelis,” and just all “the West.” Sabili consistently states that Islam and Muslims are victims of violent acts by the enemies of Allah, insisting that Islam/Muslims are never the perpetrators of violence, and therefore, it is justifiable for Muslim victims to strike back for defense. Among countless articles condoning violence, once in a while Sabili does convey a message that Islam rejects all types of terrorism. However, while stating that there is no benefit in using violence, Sabili also asserts that violence is acceptable for defense purpose. Muslims, Sabili argues, have never initiated violence in the first place. When there is an occasion where Muslims do act violently, it is merely to defend themselves from unbearable injustice and intolerable oppression long exercised by the enemies of Islam. In other words, Sabili condones violence when it is perceived as self-defense against attack. Suara, meanwhile, asserts that moderate Islam is the best choice and further emphasizes that Islam is a peaceful and nonviolent religion that promotes peaceful resolution whenever conflicts occur. For Suara, moderate Islam means practicing tolerance toward cultural and religious diversity, and at the same time, acting patiently and compassionately toward all human beings including those who commit bad deeds against Muslims. Suara strongly recommends taking the perpetrators of aggression and violence into the arms of the law, reminding Muslims to refrain from taking justice into their own hands, and argues that the excuse of “defense” could be easily disguised in similarly destructive violent acts. Al-Ikhtilaf takes a further step by persuading its readers to reject all forms of violence, particularly violence committed in the name of religion, arguing that fighting back is a destructive dead end and that violence will only breed more violence. Like Suara, Al-Ikhtilaf also emphasizes that the authentic message of Islam is nonviolent and advocates peaceful dispute resolution. Lastly, Al-Ikhtilaf suggests action programs to prevent intolerance, hatred, and violence and to celebrate diversity, in the forms of multicultural education and teaching tolerance in schools. These beliefs are reflected in their articles and statements such as “Towards peaceful multicultural society,” “Celebrating diversity with Islamic modesty,” “Civil and pluralistic democracy is compatible with Islam,” and “Hating others will only create bloody conflicts and societal chaos.”
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Social Justice All three Muslim media voiced concerns about injustice and the wrongs of the local and international communities committed against the underprivileged. The three media are in agreement in voicing concerns about social problems such as poverty, unemployment, the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, and corruption suffered by many people domestically and internationally due to systemic and structural injustices. In the domestic arena, all three criticize the weak Indonesian government as lacking the political will to implement strong law enforcement to eradicate poverty and combat corruption which in turn has worsened the socioeconomic crisis. Sabili, for instance, accuses the government of being a comprador and even a slave of Western imperialist powers by selling national assets. Dirty politics merging with dirty business has left the Indonesian government losing its sovereignty, making the poor become much poorer, while political and business elites become unashamingly richer from the illegal practice. Sabili then calls for positive social change by means of the Islamic transformative spirit of syariah to rebuild the nation. Students are praised as future leaders and the avant garde of change and are subsequently encouraged to unite to make a difference in Indonesian society by combating corruption and saving national assets that have long been exploited by greedy multinational corporations. Suara persistently persuades Muslims to promote justice for all and to reactualize the caring spirit for al-Ma’un (the underprivileged) by systemically empowering the poor, orphans, labors, peasants, and fishermen. Further, Suara stresses the need for the Indonesian government to implement clean and good governance, amidst alarming socioeconomic problems that have been hitting Indonesian society hard since the colonial era and continues up to the current time and which is marked by neo-colonization. Suara summons Muslim readers to be trustworthy and responsible in sociopolitical practice, citing the moral decadence of many opportunist politicians who take advantage of their privileged positions in a corrupt system. Meanwhile, Al-Ikhtilaf advocates the implementation of the principles and practices of social justice for domestic helpers, labors and peasants, and the dhu’afa (the poor and disenfranchised). Al-Ikhtilaf argues that the government is responsible for the widespread poverty and a lack of access to education suffered by almost half of the Indonesian population, calling this situation “state-sponsored injustice,” which is regarded equally bad as terrorism. Al-Ikhtilaf pays a great deal of attention to other social issues never touched by Sabili and only discussed insignificantly by Suara, namely issues of environmental conservation and gender equality. Al-Ikhtilaf reminds its readers that exploiting the environment is un-Islamic and asserts that Islam is a peaceful and a just religion whose mission is rahmatan lil al amin (blessing for the whole universe). On gender equality, Al-Ikhtilaf presents Prophet Muhammad as a living model for the women’s liberation movement and Islamic feminism and calls on Muslims to treat and respect women as equally as men for a just and egalitarian society to come true.
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On international issues, all three strongly oppose invasion and wars exercised by Western hegemonic powers represented by the USA and its allies against developing countries in the Southern Hemisphere, and in particular, against Muslim-majority communities and states such as Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Southern Philippines, and Indonesia. All three lament the countless casualties of innocent civilians as an awful impact of unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Western hegemony is also perceived as abusing the pretext of “war on terror” to deplete natural resources from these countries for the good of the West. In the case of Indonesia, depletion of national assets sold to foreign countries is identified as the cause of the dreadful economic crisis at home and of the widening wealth disparities between Indonesia and the West. With different gradation of criticism, all three media criticize the USA and its allies as practicing double-standard polity: while accusing some Islamic groups of terrorism, the former is actually doing similarly harmful state-driven terrorism as shown by the war in Iraq and support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Undignified treatment by the USA of Islamic leaders is seen by the three media as crude discrimination and a violation to the principles of “equal before the law” and “innocent until proved guilty.” However, although the three media show similar positions toward the US/West as was just described, the three display different nuances of expressions, stands, and their recommended consequences of actions. With fervor, Sabili labels George W. Bush – not Osama bin Laden – as the real terrorist mastermind and further asserts that antiterror measures in the form of preemptive policies implemented arrogantly by the USA are terribly repressive of Muslims. Sabili subsequently calls for Muslims to show solidarity in fighting the USA as a representation of Western global hegemony. Meanwhile, using a more neutral academic analysis, Suara concludes that the US hegemony as shown by its expansive and exploitative foreign policies is a new type of imperialism that uses the political hands of religious neoconservatism and economic neo-liberalism. Like Sabili, Suara also asserts that the USA has perpetuated grave discrimination and injustice against Muslims. Suara argues that the United Nations has been co-opted by the USA, hence branding the former as “The US’ UN.” Al-Ikhtilaf argues that the US hegemony and the war in Iraq bring about injustice and suffering for many innocent people. However, Al-Ikhtilaf does not brand the US/West as being arrogant, nor accuse it of practicing neo-colonization. Instead, Al-Ikhtilaf persuades its readers that the US/West, like Islam, is not monolithic, stating that “Not all Westerners are like Bush, not all Muslims are like Osama.” Al-Ikhtilaf subsequently recommends Muslims to further mend the relationship with the West by means of constructive dialogue and conflict reconciliation.
Critical Discussion and Conclusions The research findings show the polarities and convergences of worldviews and standpoints of the three Muslim streams – conservative, moderate, and progressive – represented respectively by Sabili, Suara Muhammadiyah, and Al-Ikhtilaf.
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In regard to construction of the enemy, all of the three Muslim streams see the USA as a dangerous enemy for Muslim communities in particular and for humanity and human rights in general. However, all three attribute it to US foreign policy, not to the USA as a country nor to its people. This is shown by three media reporting on the abuse of US hegemonic and militaristic power against countries such as Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and US exploitation of rich resources of other Muslim-majority countries. The three media provide different nuances in their viewpoints of US global power. While the moderate Suara Muhammadiyah points out that US invasion is harmful as it ruins the world order and violates human rights by practicing neo-imperialism, and the progressive-inclusionist Al-Ikhtilaf condemns the US war in Iraq as doing injustice to civilians and merely worsening the spiral of violence, only the conservative-exclusionist Sabili subscribes to a conspiracy theory by seeing US militaristic violence as part of grand design to destroy Islam. Sabili is also the sole media among the three that unforgivingly accuses fellow Muslims who promote ideas of Islamic renaissance, religious pluralism, and secularism of being the infidels within Islam who help the West and Zionists in their efforts to ruin Islam. Sabili justifies its accusation by quoting the Qur’anic verse saying that the Jews are the eternal enemy of Islam and would never stop to destroy Islam by any means. Sabili writes on this issue frequently, with a loaded prejudice and aggravated emotions. With a much lesser degree of anger-loaded accusation, and on only a couple of occasions, Suara warns its Muslim readers about the threats from fellow Muslims perceived as having such motives. These findings reaffirm Aho (1994) who, in his book entitled “This Thing of Darkness: A Sociology of the Enemy,” asserts the notion that the construction of “enemy” is both psychological and sociological and that the enemy is a joint production between the persons and the collective society. The processes of inclusion and exclusion embodied in the construction of the other and the “enemy” as well as of foes and allies, therefore, are not merely social and political processes, but also psychological and behavioral (Keen, 1991; Volkan, 1988). Previous research argues that social construction of the “enemy” could be reinforced by theologically inspired construction of the other. Ahnaf (2004), for instance, found that one of the characteristics of the so-called radical Muslims is that they tightly hold onto, and deliberately spread, doctrines and precepts that engender religious prejudice, suspicion, intolerance, distrust, and hatred against the differing other that they label as the “enemy.” Anwar (2004) further asserted that Islamic theological justifications are used by radical Muslims to define who is friend and who is foe and to make a very strict demarcation between “us” or in-group (minna) and “them” or out-group (minhum). The radical Muslims revitalize the binary concepts of muslim and kafir, Dar al-Islam (house of Islam) and Dar al-Harb (house of enemy). This is due to their absolute truth claim that negates not only the non-Muslims but also the Muslims who have different religious perceptions from theirs. In identifying factors that cause people to join hate groups, Aho found some important tools people used in building enemies: courtroom, schools, altars, and the media. He termed these tools “library of infamy,” pointing out that an essential component of the hate community is its “literature.” A vast rightist media, consisting of
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radio broadcasts, widely circulated tapes and videocassettes, newspapers, newsletters, journals, bulletins, pamphlets, books, and now the burgeoning numbers of hate websites, are among this “literature” and are influential in constructing the image and the idea of the “enemy” in peoples’ minds. There is a wide range of examples of hatred and animosity directed to the perceived enemies by different groups of all condition, races, places, and doctrines: the Nazis against the Jews in the 1940s, the US government against the Iraqi regime in 1991’s Desert Storm and against the “axis of evil” in 2003, the defenders of the Christian faiths and the Christian Nationalist Crusade against both the communist societies and the Jewish communities, Iranian mullahs against the “great Satan” USA in the late 1980s, and America’s “war on (Islamist) terrorism” in response to the 9/11 attacks. Using Aho’s term, what Sabili conveys to public readers about the notion of enemies of Allah and Islam by means of inflammatory language and unsupported accusations could be categorized as “library of infamy” as it spreads a priori prejudice, hatred, and even hostility. Jabri (1996), in analyzing the sociopolitical discourse of violence, seems to reaffirm the above analysis. Jabri uncovers the discursive and institutional processes which reproduce war and violent conflict as aspects of the human condition and explains social processes which generate and support violent human interaction. She asserted that the study of the discourse of violence and war should aim at understanding the construction of a mythology based on inclusion and exclusion. The discourse and categorization of inclusion–exclusion sharply contrast the insiders from the outsiders who are the “others,” or the deserving enemy. This process cannot be confined to the definition of the enemy in and of itself, but incorporates the inclusion of texts which valorize the history and cause of one party to a conflict while depicting the claims of the enemy as unfounded, unjust, or even diabolical. In conclusion, the findings show that Muslims’ worldviews and standpoints on issues of violence, social justice, and peacebuilding are far from monolithic: there is a wide spectrum to them. Muslim worldviews and Islamic movements are complex, dynamic, fluid, and thus open to change, depending on local and global geopolitical contexts. The boundaries between conservative-exclusionist, moderate, and progressive-inclusionist Muslim ideological streams are at times blurred when they touch upon particular sociopolitical issues which represent their common concerns and problems. This is shown by converging attitudes on four main issues: (1) protecting the needs of, and caring for, those who are disenfranchised by the structural violence, (2) transforming Indonesian domestic bad governance into good governance, (3) resisting and reforming US hegemonic unjust foreign policies, and (4) pressing the need to renew and revitalize Islamic paradigms and teachings to be more relevant in dealing with contemporary challenges and to improve the quality of Muslim human resources. Polarization among the three streams naturally and inevitably happens. The conservative-exclusionists tend to justify their derogatory attitudes toward the perceived “enemies of Allah” by using religious textual sources, while the progressive-inclusionists base their critical evaluation on “enemies of humanity” by
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using rational calculation of the actual damage done on Earth within the principles of human rights and social justice for all. Therefore, the “creeping religious radicalization” is possible on the side of conservative-exclusionist Muslims, particularly when their sociopolitical grievances are not properly readdressed. When their voices for social justice are suppressed and unheard, they resort to religious justification for their Islamist aspirations, which they believe to be a panacea to heal various sociopolitical ills. Islamist aspirations for solving problems range from the insistence on the implementation of syariah as an alternative to a perceivably failed government in curing social problems to condoning direct violent acts as a form of resistance, defense, and reform against structural violence and systemic injustice committed by “the others” in the Muslim world. All in all, the findings also reaffirm the notion that construction of the enemy and the discourse of violence do not occur in a psychosocial vacuum: local and global power relations and geopolitical and cultural–historical contexts have shaped Muslim discourse on these important issues. By identifying issues of discourse that are in convergence among the three Muslim streams, it is reasonably fair to suggest that there is room for hope that constructive dialogue and reconciliation are possible among diverse Muslim groups, as well as between conservative-exclusionist Muslim groups and non-Muslim groups (particularly the West and the USA). The prerequisite for such constructive dialogue and cooperation across civilizations to happen is that all types of violence – from direct/episodic to structural violence – need to be readdressed equally and honestly by all different parties. Engaging adversaries is indeed not easy yet possible, when the focus is not on ideology, but on achieving common goals by working together to solving common problems and with emphasis on convergences, not on polarizing issues. The West in particular, should it wish to break its misleading perspectives of the attitude of Islamic movements, needs to acknowledge its own shortcomings of incoherent foreign policies implemented against the Muslim communities. And last but not least, Muslim individuals and groups of different streams should focus on solving common problems based on their common concerns, while respecting their differences, to forge a more effective intrafaith alliance for positive social change. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Diane Bretherton for her valuable guidance and comments on an earlier version of this article which was a part of a Ph.D. dissertation she supervised at the Psychology Department, University of Melbourne, Australia. I am also grateful to Djamaludin Ancok and Komaruddin Hidayat, who gave feedback on the later version.
References Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950/1982). The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper. Ahnaf, M. I. (2004). The image of enemy: Fundamentalist Muslims’ perception of the other. Unpublished MA thesis, Centre for Cross-Cultural and Religious Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia.
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Interreligious Harmony and Peacebuilding in Indonesian Islamic Education Florian Pohl
After a long period of authoritarian rule under the New Order regime of President Suharto (1965–1998), Indonesia has more recently embarked on a social and political transformation toward democratic reform. Although this transformation for the most part has been peaceful, the country has also witnessed a series of violent communal conflicts involving religious symbolism. Most notorious among these were the civil wars between Christian and Muslim communities in Central Sulawesi and the Moluccas that started in the late 1990s. Similarly, the bloodshed in Banyuangi and Situbondo, both in East Java, associated with the challenge to the New Order regime in the late 1990s and exacerbated by the economic crisis of 1997 included much religious rhetoric (Forrester & May, 1999). In the light of theories that posit the inevitability of clashes between different cultural or religious communities (e.g., Huntington, 1996), it is critical to ask how lasting harmony and peace among religiously or culturally diverse groups can be achieved. This chapter addresses this question by looking specifically at the contributions that Islamic education makes to interreligious harmony, peacebuilding, and good interfaith relations in the context of contemporary Indonesia. It is argued that Indonesia’s Muslim schools and colleges remain profoundly significant in the country’s multireligious and multiethnic society as institutions that foster among their students and the wider public values and structures that promote peaceful relations by drawing on core Islamic values such as human dignity and social justice. This chapter begins with a short overview of institutions of Indonesian Islamic education that demonstrates the ability of Muslim schools to adapt to modern socioeconomic and pedagogical demands, an observation that contrasts with the caricature-style depiction of Islamic education as unchanging and monolithic. The ways in which the different Muslim educational institutions have supported good interfaith relations and democratic–pluralist reform especially after the fall of the New Order government are then examined in more detail. Particular attention is given to state Islamic higher education and the private educational networks of the two largest Muslim social welfare organizations: Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). The chapter then contextualizes the developments in the educational sector in the larger Indonesian debate over religion and state and concludes with
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extrapolations for the wider discourse over religion, education, and the promotion of pluralism and peaceful interfaith relations.
Institutions of Muslim Education in Indonesia Indonesia’s Islamic education system is among the largest and most diverse in the world. Next to the state-run system of Islamic primary, secondary, and tertiary education exists a private sector of mostly religiously affiliated institutions such as traditionalist Islamic boarding schools or pesantrens, Islamic day schools or madrasahs, as well as Islamic colleges and universities. This dualistic structure of state-run and private schooling is in large parts a leftover from the Dutch colonial period. With national independence (and accelerating under the New Order government [1965–1998]), however, state efforts were made to bring together private and public education. This meant, on the one hand, an increase in religious instruction in state schools and, on the other hand, the promotion of general subjects in religious schools. Among the religious schools, the pesantrens and madrasahs have played a central role in government efforts to unify the national education system. The madrasahs had been championed by the Muslim modernist movement Muhammadiyah in the first half of the twentieth century. With the madrasah the modernists introduced a graded school system that successfully combined religious subjects with formal ones modeled on the European-style religious day school (Boland, 1971, p. 113). Teaching methods and organization differed from those found in traditional Islamic schools. Blackboards, tables, and chairs, as well as formal textbooks and exams, replaced the informal structures of traditional Islamic education. Through the standardization of the madrasah curriculum, the Indonesian government successfully raised the percentage of general subjects to 70%. Many privately run madrasahs have since adopted a state-accredited curriculum and use government-sanctioned textbooks similar or equivalent to those employed in general schools. These changes have made them eligible to receive financial subsidies from the state while also bringing them more closely under state supervision. Similar reforms initiated by the state also helped integrate the pesantrens into the national education system and ensured that their students receive a general education along with their religious studies. The pesantrens are known as traditionalist institutions of Islamic learning devoted to the study and transmission of classical Islamic disciplines of knowledge. Historically, the pesantren functioned as an Islamic boarding school in which students (santri) lived and studied under the tutelage of the pesantren director (kiai) known for his charisma and erudition in Islamic learning. Education was based on the Qur’an, with additional classical Islamic branches of learning taught through classical texts known as kitab kuning (lit.; yellow books). The preservation of this tradition in the education and social reproduction of kiais was an explicit goal in the pesantren tradition, further indicating the schools’ traditionalist orientation (Dhofier, 1999). Although in most pesantrens it is still possible for a student to focus solely
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on religious learning, many have incorporated general subjects into their curricula. Still others, mostly smaller pesantrens, have modified their daily educational schedule so as to allow their students to visit general schools outside the pesantren during the day, while traditional religious instruction is given in the pesantren in the morning and at night. A steadily growing number of pesantrens, moreover, integrated madrasah-type or general schools into their educational programs. These teach a curriculum approved by the Ministry of National Education or the Ministry of Religious Affairs and make the pesantrens eligible to receive government subsidies for their educational work. Through the adoption of the state-sanctioned curricula and the provision of financial benefits, madrasahs and pesantrens have become increasingly incorporated into Indonesia’s national education system and brought under government control. The enactment of educational laws in the late 1980s and amendments in 2003 and 2004 officially identified Islamic schools as a part of the national system of education by recognizing the degrees conferred upon their graduates. One of the results of this process has been that graduates from these religious schools have been eligible to continue their education not only at private but also at state colleges and universities. This integration has been helped by the establishment of Islamic universities and colleges and the development of a nationwide system of state Islamic higher education (Azra, Afrianty, & Hefner, 2007, p. 188–191). The state maintains its own system of Islamic colleges and universities such as the State Islamic Colleges (Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri [STAIN]), State Institutes for Islamic Studies (Institut Agama Islam Negeri [IAIN]), and State Islamic Universities (Universitas Islam Negeri [UIN]). Conscious efforts to expand the state system of Islamic higher education were made in the 1960s and accelerated a decade later under Mukti Ali, then minister for religious affairs. Programs of faculty training were initiated with universities in Western Europe and North America, most prominent among which has been the cooperation between the IAIN and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. These efforts have resulted in an updating of methods of instruction in Islamic studies and the integration of religious with general sciences (Azra et al., 2007, p. 189). Beginning in the 1980s, the IAIN also began to develop graduate and postgraduate programs, and more recently, there have been efforts to enhance the profile of the IAIN by transforming them into UIN. The upgrading of IAINs to fully fledged research universities began in 2002 with Syarif Hidayatuallah State Islamic Institute in Jakarta and continued with the IAINs in Yogyakarta, Malang, Pekanbaru, Bandung, and Makassar, all of which were converted into universities. As research universities, these now include additional departments in the social sciences, medicine, and law. Enrollment data from the Ministry of National Education for the school year 2005–2006 indicates that between 10 and 15%, depending on the school level, of Indonesia’s youth attend madrasahs or Islamic colleges and universities (Pusat Statistik Pendidikan, 2006). The number of pesantrens throughout the archipelago is estimated at 14,000 (ICG, 2003). There exists some overlap among these institutions because it happens frequently that a pesantren student is simultaneously enrolled in a madrasah, general school, and institution of higher learning.
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State efforts in Islamic higher education have facilitated the transfer of students between the different educational institutions. It has become increasingly common to find graduates from religious secondary schools who have been able to make the transfer to graduate and postgraduate programs at general universities via these Islamic colleges and universities, primarily in the social sciences and humanities. These efforts have reduced, if not fully eliminated, the educational dualism and antagonism characteristic of the education systems in many former colonies. Furthermore, the continuing high demand for state-certified education has led many Islamic schools, colleges, and universities in the private sector to comply with government-prescribed curricula and to fulfill additional administrative requirements. A creative and forward-looking balance between religious and general education has been achieved in many of Indonesia’s Islamic schools. Against the cartoonish representation of Islamic education as inflexible, stagnant, and retrogressive, it is clear that Indonesia’s Muslim schools have experienced a series of changes and have been responsive and adaptive to the demands of modern life. Such openness is discerned also with regard to questions of religious and cultural diversity, particularly within a multiethnic and multireligious Indonesia.
Islamic Education’s Contributions to Interreligious Harmony A forward-looking attitude with regard to Islamic and general education and the acceptance of government guidelines concerning curriculum content are not by themselves sufficient indicators for a pluralism-affirming outlook in Islamic education. As Azra et al. (2007) have pointed out, even schools run by individuals or organizations that otherwise exhibit essentially non-cooperative political convictions such as the infamous Pesantren Ngruki of Abu Bakar Ba’asyir close to the central Javanese town of Solo follow government regulations for general education that they provide in their madrasahs (p. 192). The harshly anti-Western and especially anti-Jewish polemic, rejection of popular democracy, and support for an Islamic state are incongruent with the pluralist nature of the Indonesian state. There exists, to be sure, no consensus among Indonesian Muslim educators about how Islamic education can serve political reform and pluralist change. Given the institutional variety of Islamic learning in both public and private sectors of education, such diversity is not surprising. This situation has been exacerbated by the increasing political decentralization after the fall of the New Order government which has allowed local governments to change educational policies in their school districts. Some have begun to demand traditional Islamic garb for female students of state schools and have added supplementary religious instruction to the curriculum. There also have been sporadic reports that instructors on all levels of education use mandatory courses on religion to subject students to a rigid, anti-pluralist interpretation of Islam. Increased proselytizing activities by dakwah groups on campuses within the state system have raised further concerns that these are a source of Muslim intolerance and militancy.
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Despite the public attention these cases receive, the number of Islamic schools with radical political views is small. They constitute a minority within the Indonesian Muslim educational scene, which is characterized generally not only by an accommodating balance between religious and general education but also by political moderation and a commitment to the idea of a multireligious and multiethnic Indonesia. Although the decentralization of education in the wake of recent political reform has had negative results in some cases, in other instances it has also freed Islamic institutions from the limiting control of the state and granted them autonomy to develop more progressive curriculum materials than their non-Islamic counterparts. The state system of Islamic higher education is a pertinent example in this regard.
The State System of Islamic Colleges and Universities From its inception, the state Islamic university system has shown a remarkable openness and inclusive perspective on education and learning. Especially after the reforms of the 1970s and 1980s, the state system has integrated Islamic and Western educational approaches and disciplines in many ways reflective of a reformist approach to Islamic education. It is significant to note that this inclusive attitude extends to the study of the Islamic sciences in which an emphasis is placed on historical and contextual approaches. Such a nondogmatic approach is further exemplified by the fact that the curriculum in the state system includes all of the accepted Islamic legal schools and does not solely focus on the Shafi‘i school of law, the majority legal tradition in the Indonesian Muslim community (Azra et al., 2007, p. 189). Since 1999, the state system of Islamic higher education has also developed a progressive civic education program that combines Islamic and Western notions of democratic pluralism and civil society (Jackson & Bahrissalim, 2007, p. 48–49). The goal of the program is to equip students with the prerequisite understanding, knowledge, and skill in order to participate in and shape the democratic political discourse in fulfillment of their civic rights and obligations. Next to a discussion of the idea of civic education itself, the concept of civil society characterized by democracy, respect for the rights of others, tolerance, pluralism, as well as social justice is presented. Attention has also been paid to teacher training and instructional methods that foster participatory learning and critical thinking (ibid.). The civic education program was piloted in late 2000 and has since been implemented in the form of a compulsory course for new students throughout the state Islamic university system. The materials developed for these programs have replaced the earlier courses in civic education that were required under the New Order. At the time of its implementation, the program was well ahead of comparable courses in other institutions of higher education. Indeed, its success has led other institutions of higher education, most notably in the Muhammadiyah system, to implement their own versions of this program (ibid., p. 47). Observations such as
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the foregoing led Merle Ricklefs in a public lecture in September 2004 to describe the state system of Islamic higher education and its nationwide network of campuses as “bastion of tolerant, liberal, pluralistic Islam” (Ricklefs, 2004). The importance of the state system of Islamic higher education for this democratic–pluralist branch of Indonesian Islam is further underscored by the fact that an increasing number of pesantren leaders have received their university training within the state system as opposed to institutions of Islamic higher learning in Cairo or the Hijaz. A similar trend is noticeable for pesantren and madrasah teachers throughout Indonesia. According to Azra et al. (2007), these developments are likely to extend the influence of the civic culture promoted by the state Islamic university system to other institutions within the national education system (p. 190). The impact of state Islamic colleges and universities, however, extends beyond the education system into the wider society by shaping the public outlook and debate over Islam’s role in civic life. The IAIN in particular has had a long tradition of public intellectuals who were suspicious of any attempt to use the authority of the state to impose a narrow version of Islam on society and argued instead for a contextual interpretation of Islam that would make it more socially relevant to Indonesia’s ethnically, culturally, and religiously heterogeneous society.1 Many of the most prominent Muslim intellectuals and activists advocating a civil–pluralist Islam are found within the network of state Islamic higher education such as Azumardi Azra, the former rector of the UIN Jakarta, and Amin Abdullah who currently serves a second term as the rector of the UIN Yogyakarta. The latter also functioned as vice chairman for the Muslim modernist Muhammadiyah organization from 2000 to 2005, drawing attention to the connections among institutions and organizations in the Islamic educational sector.
The Muhammadiyah’s Educational Network Alongside the state system of education, there exist a number of private educational networks at primary, intermediate, secondary, and higher education levels. The majority of these educational institutions are associated with the two largest Muslim social welfare organizations – the Muhammadiyah and the NU. The Muhammadiyah is Indonesia’s largest modernist Muslim mass organization. With an estimated membership of more than 25 million, it is only slightly smaller than its traditionalist counterpart, the NU. Leaders from both organizations have repeatedly emphasized their commitment to a pluralist Indonesia, criticized the idea of an Islamic state, and instead asserted their organizations’ role in the sector of civil
1 Among
these public figures, the late Nurcholish Madjid (1939–2005) stands out as perhaps most visible and influential. He was educated at the then IAIN Syarif Hidayatuallah in Jakarta and later received a doctorate from the University of Chicago. He untiringly criticized the ideology of an Islamic state and called for tolerance and interreligious dialogue and understanding. For an instructive overview of his thought, see Madjid (1988).
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society by advocating political civility and tolerance (see Nakamura, Siddique, & Bajunid, 2001). Both organizations have been able to rely on a wide network of educational institutions to mobilize support for their moderate Islam. From its inception in 1912, the expressed target of the Muhammadiyah’s activities was the modernization of the Muslim community. A heterogeneous membership representing a wide range of political orientations has caused the Muhammadiyah to refrain from direct involvement in the political process. Instead, it has persistently pursued its modernizing agenda as a religious and social organization in the sphere of civil society primarily through educational and social welfare institutions such as schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, and clinics. The organization’s educational orientation was modern and plural from the very beginning. On all levels of the educational spectrum, general and Islamic disciplines combined to form an integrated concept of education. Through the continual upgrading of the curriculum, the Muhammadiyah schools have been fully incorporated into the national education system. The madrasahs in the Muhammadiyah network currently use a governmentaccredited curriculum of 70% general and 30% Islamic subjects, although in some cases, supplementary classes in Islamic disciplines may be offered in addition to the government curriculum. Besides its extensive network of madrasahs, the Muhammadiyah maintains a large number of private colleges and universities throughout the country. Like the state system, many of the Muhammadiyah’s institutions of higher learning have earned a reputation for advancing progressive Islamic understanding of pluralism, democracy, and human rights. Particularly well known among these has been the Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), which gained prominence toward the end of the 1980s under the leadership of Malik Fadjar who went on to become minister of religion in the early reformasi era in 1998. In 2003, the Muhammadiyah implemented a mandatory civic education program on all its university campuses and currently is seeking to transfer the program into its secondary educational institutions through its “Program Pengembangan Civic Education di Lingkungan SMA Muhammadiyah di Indonesia.” The Muhammadiyah’s civic education program was modeled after the successful courses developed earlier in the state Islamic university system but was geared toward its own organizational context emphasizing the Muhammadiyah’s self-understanding as a social welfare organization in opposition to the establishment of an Islamic state (Jackson & Bahrissalim, 2007, p. 47–51).
The Nahdlatul Ulama: Indonesia’s Pesantren Tradition The NU was established in 1926 by Muslim traditionalists as an organizational response to the challenges posed by Islamic modernism represented by the Muhammadiyah. Since then it has functioned as an independent, grassroots network of local communities with kiais and their pesantrens as bases. (Feillard [1999] continues to be one of the most authoritative works on the NU.)
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Compared to its modernist counterpart, the number of colleges and universities affiliated with the traditionalist NU is smaller. Its educational network consists primarily of Islamic boarding schools or pesantrens. Following the adoption of general education materials and the establishment of madrasahs or general schools within the pesantren environment, the pesantrens have largely become cooperative agents within the national education system (Bruinessen, 2004). This integration was furthered by the NU’s emphasis on development work in the 1970s and 1980s which significantly increased the pesantrens’ visibility and relevance on a national scale. Their far-reaching institutional network throughout the archipelago coupled with their traditional community orientation has made them attractive partners for initiatives aimed at community development (see Oepen & Karcher, 1988). The changing political climate after 1998 and Indonesia’s transition to democratic rule have influenced the emphasis of the community development work in many pesantrens. Educational efforts to embrace Indonesia’s cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity and to support the country’s democratic transition and fledgling civil society have accelerated. In response to the outbreak of communal conflicts, interfaith and peacebuilding initiatives have become part of this agenda. More than any other institution in the Islamic educational scene, the pesantrens have been directly involved in peacebuilding initiatives as a response to episodic outbreaks of conflict in their communities. The pesantrens’ involvement in conflict resolution and peacebuilding traditionally has focused on the charismatic authority of the pesantren leader or kiai. A kiai’s authority rests on his erudition in Islam and is often coupled with the conviction that he possesses special spiritual and mystical powers that make him a source of blessing or barakah (Dhofier, 1999, p. 39). The complete subordination of the santri under the kiai as “spiritual father” is considered an inalienable condition for the acquisition of knowledge in pesantren education. But the charismatic leadership of the kiai extends beyond the pesantren to the local community in which he commands great respect. Many spiritual and education activities in the pesantrens are open to the local community. On other occasions, the kiai will lead or participate in community gatherings outside the pesantren complex. In addition to his role as religious expert, he in some cases assumes the functions of a political leader, counselor, or that of a mystical healer or dukun and predisposes him to negotiate between conflicting interests in the community (Geertz, 1960; Horikoshi, 1987). The outbreak of communal violence in Situbondo, East Java, in October 1998 furnishes a particularly instructive example of the kiais’ strategic position in the mediation and resolution of episodic conflicts in local communities. In response to the violence that involved the destruction of 22 Christian places of worship in and around the city of Situbondo, Kiai Ahmad Fawa’id of Pesantren Salafiya Syafi’iyah Situbondo dispatched his students to protect and stand guard at Christian places of worship and mobilized a group of influential leaders from the different religious communities who worked together with local government officials to mediate the conflict. They jointly campaigned in their communities for an end to the hostility and negotiated among different groups (LP3ES, 2005, p. 57). A kiai’s ability to mediate in situations of communal conflict is directly related to his religious authority and the unquestioned loyalty of his followers in the pesantren
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and local community. Such a culture-specific power structure in which authority is exercized vertically is not in itself democratic – only the integrity and goodwill of the kiai guard against potential abuse. In the Indonesian case, however, it can be observed that such vertical and authoritarian interventions by the kiais have in some instances, such as in Situbondo, created the conditions under which more egalitarian and participatory efforts at community building can occur. Upon his involvement in the pacification of the events of October 1998, Kiai Fawa’id continued to organize regular meetings between leaders and lay people of Muslim and Christian groups in Situbondo. These meetings initially resulted in combined aid programs for the Christian community that actively involved students from the pesantren in the rebuilding of the destroyed churches but also have included subsequent efforts at conflict prevention through educational interfaith programs for the entire community. It is instructive to note that many pesantrens have begun to transcend the kiaicentered mediation in episodic violence and broadened their efforts and strategies to include systemic peacebuilding initiatives that aim at the promotion of socially just structures in their communities. The cooperation with local or national NGOs and other civil society organization working in various fields of community development has been characteristic of this process. Some of the most widely known organizations operating within the pesantren network include the Indonesian Society for Pesantren and Community Development (Perhimpunan Pengembangan Pesantren dan Masyarakat [P3M]), the Jakarta-based Center for Pesantren and Democracy Studies (CePDeS), the interfaith institute Interfidei (Institut Dialog Antar Iman) in Yogyakarta, as well as the Institute for Social Research, Democracy, and Social Justice (Percik) in Salatiga, Central Java. As part of this expanding organizational network, an increasing number of pesantrens have earned a national reputation for the promotion of antiviolence, interfaith tolerance, human rights, and the empowerment of women in and beyond their local communities. A particularly noteworthy case of a pesantren that emphasizes peacebuilding and good interfaith relations is Pesantren Al Muayyad Windan in the Central Javanese City of Solo (Pohl, 2006). The pesantren carries out its peacebuilding programs through a number of local NGOs such as the Institute of Human Services of Interfaith Community (Lembaga Bhakti Kemanusiaan Umat Beragama [LBK-UB]). LBK-UB is situated in Boyolali, a half-hour drive from Solo, a region that repeatedly has witnessed violent incidents between different religious communities as the result of conflicts over the unequal allocation of resources such as rice and water. In response, LBK-UB has facilitated joint projects of the different religious groups to build water pumping and irrigation systems that benefit the entire community. Parallel to the work on interfaith relations, an increasing energy and focus on the empowerment of women can be seen in the pesantren scene as well. In the wake of these developments, some pesantrens have come to be known as “pesantren gender” (Soebahar, 2004). Among these, Darul Tawhid in Cirebon has gained a widespread reputation for its work on issues of gender and women’s rights. Its kiai, Hussein Muhammad, was instrumental in the foundation of the pesantren-based
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NGO Fahmina, which hence has had remarkable success engaging the support of numerous pesantrens in the region to promote women’s rights at the local level. Many of these initiatives focus on addressing the weak economic status of women in local communities to which other forms of injustice are related. The provision of interest-free loans to women in the community in order to set up home businesses has been a prevalent strategy to overcome some of the challenges faced by women in a culture of patriarchy and abuse.
What Explains the Success of Muslim Schools and Colleges? Contextualizing Islamic Education in Indonesia The support of the pesantrens’ initiatives by the wider community and their resultant success in part can be related to the central role and authority of the kiais and their pesantrens in the local communities. Beyond the respect that the kiai commands, however, the pesantrens derive legitimacy (and support) for their work from their ability to articulate alternative perspectives on the nature of interfaith relations or the relationships between men and women within the framework of Islamic discourse. The support of women’s rights carried out by Fahmina, for example, is squarely placed within the Islamic legal tradition. Kiai Hussein Muhammad, Fahmina’s founder, is the author of a book on gender equality from an Islamic perspective entitled Fiqh Perempuan: Refleksi Kiai atas Wacana Agama dan Gender (2001) that has become the manifesto for the work of many Muslim women’s rights organizations in Indonesia. Similarly, the Pesantren Salafiya Syafi’iyah Situbondo of Kiai Ahmad Fawa’id advances contemporary interpretations of Islamic law through the Institute of Islamic Higher Learning (Ma’had Aly). Its weekly publication Tanwirul Afkar provides the rationale for many of the pesantren’s interfaith activities by drawing on established methodologies of Islamic legal reasoning. Instead of a one-sided reliance on concepts such as pluralism and gender that might be resisted by the local population as culturally foreign and intrusive, these pesantrens scale up Islamically based principles such as justice and human dignity to support community development and peacebuilding programs. In their ability to address and at times prevent violent episodes of conflict in local communities, Indonesia’s pesantrens are somewhat unique among the country’s institutions of Islamic learning. The pesantrens’ more systemic peacebuilding initiatives, however, that promote nonviolent strategies to address conflict and seek to implement just social structures by strengthening cooperation among diverse groups in Indonesia’s multireligious and multiethnic society find support in a wider spectrum of educational institutions. The development of programs and initiatives that promote among their students and the wider public values and structures which promote justice and peaceful relations is indicative of a larger trend within the Islamic educational scene. Muslim educational institutions from the state-run system of higher education to the private system of religious universities, colleges, and schools have embraced (with few exceptions) the broadening of the curriculum
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and updating of their teaching methods. Similarly, through the development of new teaching materials and programs, they are raising among their students a critical awareness of questions of civic rights and responsibilities in a democratic and multicultural Indonesia. In this way, they empower students in concrete ways to shape this transformative social process from an Islamic perspective. The foregoing developments have made Muslim education a strategic institution for building a pluralist society in a Muslim-majority nation and for actively promoting the values of public civility and a culture of peace. A question that remains to be addressed is how to explain the openness and adaptability of Islamic education in Indonesia to the issues outlined above. At least two ways to contextualize the foregoing observations present themselves. First, it is imperative to realize that the modernization of Islamic education is not unique to the Indonesian context. Nationalizing reforms in other Muslim countries have led to the modification of curricula and structures in many Islamic educational institutions and have brought them more closely under the control of the state. Increasingly, Muslim schools have become integrated into national systems of education, often through the incorporation of formal schools or the adoption of government-accredited curricula. The reform of Egypt’s famous Al-Azhar University in 1961 is as much an example of this trend as are the education reforms in Pakistan during the late 1970s and 1980s, which led to the recognition of degrees from Pakistan’s religious schools by the state. These political developments have been paralleled by intellectual efforts exemplified by the First International Conference on Muslim Education in Mecca in 1977 (al-Attas, 1979) and the impressive scholarly work that it generated (e.g., al-Faruqi, 1981). The creation of a number of new Islamic universities and institutes has aimed at transferring these efforts into concrete educational structures. Many countries since have seen the creation of religious colleges and universities such as the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, established in 1983. Second, the readiness of Indonesia’s Muslim educators to embrace the ideals of a multicultural and multireligious Indonesia and to support the development of a democratic–pluralist public sphere must be viewed in the larger context of the Indonesian debate over the proper relationship between Islam and the state. It may be understood as an indication that the national consensus represented by the Pancasila which effectively pluralized both religion and politics still has widespread appeal. Constitutionally, Indonesia is based on five principles known as the Pancasila. These are ketuhanan (belief in one God), peri-kemanusiaan (universal humanism), kebangsaan (national unity), kerakyatan (representative democratic government), and keadilan sosial (social justice). Enshrined in a preamble to the constitution, the Pancasila forms the philosophy of the state, indicating that national unity is not based on enforced membership in any one religious community. Considering Indonesia’s Muslim-majority population, it is significant to note that none of the elections in post-independence Indonesia have resulted in a majority vote for Muslim parties (Effendy, 2003, p. 211–214). And even though the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998 set free political aspirations within Muslim circles that led to an unprecedented growth of Muslim political parties, the majority of these accepted the Pancasila and did not seek to make Islam the basis of the state. Even
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the success of the Prosperous Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Sejahtera [PKS]), which gained about 7.5% of the national vote in the 2004 elections, need not be understood as a widespread endorsement of statist politics in the name of Islam. Although the PKS unambiguously calls for the implementation of Islamic law on the national level in its political program, its success at the ballot box was made possible only by relegating this call for Shariah to the background and instead stressing clean government, moral accountability, and the fight against cronyism and corruption. The propagation of an Islamic state and the implementation of Shariah law have been distinct minority positions in the Indonesian Muslim community. Despite its history of authoritarian rule, there exists in contemporary Indonesia a strong network of individuals and organizations which Hefner (2000) has described as “civil Islam” providing support for democratic and pluralist change from an Islamic perspective. Along with Muslim public intellectuals and activists and the rich tapestry of Muslim civic associations, the Muslim educational scene assumes a central role in this network of a civil–pluralist Islam.
What Role Does Religious Education Play in Shaping Students’ Responses to Diversity? The observation that Islamic education is not inherently opposed to fostering peace and interfaith harmony opens up the broader discussion of the role of religious education in preparing students to live as adherents to a particular faith in a culture of diversity. Although the integration of general education materials has meant in many cases that a smaller number of hours is available for Islamic disciplines, religion has retained a central significance for school structure, administration, curriculum design, and the general culture of Muslim schools in Indonesia. Neither are conviction and commitment to Islam absent from the Indonesian examples. Yet as the foregoing discussion demonstrates, Indonesia’s Islamic universities, colleges, and schools play a role in shaping the public discourse on pluralism and peaceful interfaith relations. These observations allow for a few careful extrapolations with regard to more general insights the Indonesian case offers about question of religious education in religiously diverse societies. First, the Indonesian case shows that the attitude toward pluralism that the respective religious tradition promotes is more important than the particular role religion plays in the educational affairs of a school. As Machacek (2003) has remarked, the role and status of a religious tradition within an institution and an institution’s ability to assign a positive value to religious diversity are independent variables (p. 159). Rather than the status of religion within the educational hierarchy, it is the extent to which a religious tradition fosters respect for the rights of others that determines whether or not religious schools are able to promote peace and interfaith harmony. A second point results from the fact that the pluralism-affirming stance of Indonesian Islamic education is developed within an explicitly religious framework. This framework is shaped by core Islamic notions of human dignity and social justice
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that are understood not just to allow peace and tolerance but in fact to demand it. It is because of the principled commitment to Islamic values not in spite of it that the rights of the religious “Other” are asserted. These observations serve as a reminder that tolerance has little to do with religious relativism or the elimination of strong commitments but requires a principled stance from which to assert the rights of all members of society. A superficial and compromising tolerance, as Marty (2000) remarked in his reflections on the role of religion in American education, “can often be a very weak virtue, one not strong enough to structure a vital public arena” (p. 100). A more productive tolerance, for Marty, is one that compels a person to speak out and act against intolerance in whatever shape or form it occurs (ibid.). Such tolerance undoubtedly does not arise by itself but must be learned. To be certain, religious schools are not the only institutions in which it may be cultivated. An educational environment, however, that fosters commitment to a specific religious tradition along with an emphasis on respect for others by drawing on the tradition’s resources that ennoble human life can help students successfully engage diversity in the tension between commitment to their own faith and openness to that of others. Finally, the Indonesian example suggests the need to rethink secular assumptions that describe the progressive secularization of education and modern life as a precondition for the accommodation of diversity. This is more pertinent when one considers that recent Western aid and development programs that target Muslim schools have sought to promote secular education in government and private schools with the sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit intention of reducing the influence religious educational institutions are perceived to wield over Muslim youths. Among recent aid and development programs, the USA announced in late August 2004 that it would provide US $157 million to Indonesia over a period of five years in order to enhance the quality of instruction in the country’s religious schools. Similar programs have been undertaken by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in support of education reform in Pakistan (for a discussion of the US strategies to aid education reform in Pakistan, see Kronstadt [2004]). Not only are such programs in danger of extending what Montiel (2003) has called “new forms of foreign intrusion” and “cultural dominations” (p. 212), but they also overlook the fact that secular educational institutions equally have given rise to intolerance and religious extremism. Instead of uninspiring distinctions between secular and religious education, the Indonesian case encourages a more copious discussion over the relationship between religion, education, and the promotion of peaceful interfaith relations.
References al-Attas, S. M. N. (1979). Aims and objectives of Islamic education. Jeddah, King Abd al-Aziz University: Hodder and Stoughton. Azra, A., Afrianty, D., & Hefner, R. W. (2007). Pesantren and madrasa: Muslim schools and national ideals in Indonesia. In R. W. Hefner, & M. Q. Zaman (Eds.), Schooling Islam: The culture and politics of Modern Muslim education (pp. 172–197). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Boland, B. J. (1971). The struggle of Islam in modern Indonesia (slightly revised reprint). The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Bruinessen, M. van. (2004). ‘Traditionalist’ and ‘Islamist’ pesantren in contemporary Indonesia. Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.let.uu.nl/ ˜martin.vanbruinessen/personal/ publications/pesantren_2.htm Dhofier, Z. (1999). The pesantren tradition. The role of the kyai in the maintenance of traditional Islam in Java. Tempe, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies. Effendy, B. (2003). Islam and the state in Indonesia. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. al-Faruqi, I. (1981). Islamising the social sciences. In I. al-Faruqi, & A. O. Naseef (Eds.), Social and natural sciences (pp. 32–58). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Feillard, A. (1999). NU vis-à-vis negara [NU vis-à-vis the state]. Yogyakarta: LKiS. Forrester, G., & May, R. J. (Eds.). (1999). The fall of Soeharto. Singapore: SelectBooks. Geertz, C. (1960). The Javanese kijaji: The changing role of a cultural broker. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2, 228–249. Hefner, R. W. (2000). Civil Islam. Muslims and democratization in Indonesia. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Horikoshi, H. (1987). Kiai dan perubahan sosial. Jakarta: P3M. Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. International Crisis Groups [ICG] (2003). Jemaah Islamiyah in South East Asia: Damaged but still dangerous (Asia Report 63). Retrieved February 2, 2008, from http://www.crisisgroup.org Jackson, E., & Bahrissalim (2007). Crafting a new democracy: Civic education in Indonesian Islamic universities. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 27, 41–54. Kronstadt, K. A. (2004). Education reform in Pakistan (CRS Report for Congress). Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/ 40145.pdf Lembaga Penelitian, Pendidikan dan Penerangan Ekonomi dan Sosial [LP3ES]. (2005). Laporan penelitian: The role of pesantren to support community Network and to develop peaceful coexistence in Indonesia. Jakarta: LP3ES. Machacek, D. W. (2003). The problem of pluralism. Sociology of Religion, 64, 145–161. Madjid, M. (1988). The necessity of renewing Islamic thought and reinvigorating religious understanding. In Ch. Kurzman (Ed.), Liberal Islam: A sourcebook (pp. 284–294). New York: Oxford University Press. Marty, M. M., with Moore, J. (2000). Education, religion and the common good. Advancing a distinctly American conversation about religion’s role in our shared life. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Montiel, C. J. (2003). Peace psychology in Asia. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9, 195–218. Muhammad, H. (2001). Fiqh perempuan: Refleksi kiai atas wacana agama dan gender. Yogyakarta: LkiS. Nakamura, M., Siddique, S., & Bajunid, O. F. (Eds.). (2001). Islam and civil society in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast-Asian Studies. Oepen, M., & Karcher, W. (Eds.). (1988). The impact of pesantren in education and community development in Indonesia. Berlin: Technical University Berlin. Pohl, F. (2006). Islamic education and civil society: Reflections on the pesantren tradition in contemporary Indonesia. Comparative Education Review, 50, 389–409. Pusat Statistik Pendidikan, Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan, Departemen Pendidikan Nasional. (2006). Ikhtisar data pendidikan nasional (Tahun 2005/2006) [National Education Data Summary, 2005–2006]. Retrieved May 15, 2008, from http://www.depdiknas.go.id/ statistik/0506/bukusaku_0506.pdf Ricklefs, M. C. (2004). Islamizing Indonesia: Religion and politics in Singapore’s giant neighbour. Retrieved May 28, 2008, from http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/ showfile.asp?eventfileid=196 Soebahar, A. H. (2004). Pesantren gender: Rekonstruksi tiga pesantren di Jawa. Dialog, 2, 52–61.
The Future of Malay–Chinese Relations in Malaysia Noraini M. Noor
Malaysia, with a population of 26.75 million, is a multiethnic society comprised of Malays (54.2%), Chinese (25.3%), Indians (7.5%), and others (13.0%) (Ninth Malaysia Plan, 2006–2010). Together with the indigenous people of Sabah and Sarawak, the Malays are collectively known as Bumiputera (sons and daughters of the soil). The Malays, however, make up about 82.3% of the Bumiputera. While the terms Malay, Bumiputera, Chinese, and Indian are generally used as if each denotes a homogeneous group, each group in fact is highly differentiated. All the groups have their separate languages, cultures, and religions. Malays are Muslims, while Chinese and Indians belong to various denominations, notably Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity. While Malay is the national language, English is taught and widely spoken in the country. In this chapter, the Malay–Chinese relation is examined by considering the history and nature of the relationship, the ensuing intergroup conflict, and the steps taken by the government and civil society groups to address the conflict. Finally, a psychocultural approach to building peace between the two groups is proposed.
History and Nature of the Malay–Chinese Relations Historically, the Malay Archipelago was a trading route spanning India, Arabia, and China for centuries even before the founding of Malacca in 1402 (Andaya & Andaya, 2001). Since then the Malays, Chinese, and Indians have been living and working in Malaya (now West Malaysia). This cultural pluralism was an integral part of the local reality and laid the grounds for a flexible cultural terrain capable of absorbing other layers of pluralism to come, even colonialism (Zawawi, 2004). Prior to the British, Malaya was colonized first by the Portuguese in 1511 followed by the Dutch in 1641, but these two colonial powers did not interfere much with the local culture or structure of the society as their main aim was the monopoly of trade. But when the British colonized the country in 1726, they used their “divide and rule” policy across different cultural groups. The plural society turned into a C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_9, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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culture divided along labor lines, laying the foundation for communal divisions in Malaysia. The British, spurred by its need to consolidate raw materials for industrial capitalism at home, appeased the indigenous Malay aristocracy by conserving their position as the traditional rulers in matters concerning their religion and customs before doing anything else. The majority of the Malay peasantry, however, were kept on agrarian subsistence level and given only rudimentary education. In the process, British colonialism subjected the majority of the Malays to a position of economic and educational backwardness, contributing to the later ethnicization of poverty (Zawawi, 2004). The British also encouraged unrestricted and large-scale immigration of Chinese and Indians (known generally as the non-Malays) to exploit the tin mines and open new lands for rubber estate cultivation so much so that by the mid-1930s their population swelled to virtually equal in size to the indigenous Malay population (Snodgrass, 1980). During the British colonial period, two distinct and parallel methods of production were discernable in Malaya, the large-scale production and commercial activities of the English and the traditional methods of peasant agriculture and fishing practiced by the rural Malays. These economic distinctions sowed the seeds for structural violence. While the Europeans and non-Malays belonged to the modern capitalist sector of the economy, the Malays were mostly engaged in unwaged traditional peasant sector. Therefore, the plurality of the population and the dualism of the economy fell neatly within ethnic demarcations, with Malays and Chinese structurally isolated from one another. When the British under the MacMichael Treaty wanted to create a Malayan Union where, among other changes, the status of the Malay rulers, the autonomy of the states, and the rights of the Malays would be abolished, the Malays united to form the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in 1946. The Chinese founded the Malayan Chinese Association (MCA) in 1949, and similarly, the Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) was formed in 1946. It should be noted that in contrast to UMNO, MCA and MIC rested on narrow class bases, comprising only of the wealthy Chinese and Indians. These three, UMNO, MCA, and MIC, formed the Alliance Party (a multiethnic but Malay-dominated coalition) and evolved a working relationship which has become the landmark of Malaysian politics ever since, that is, a power-sharing system based on the division and balance of responsibilities: the economic prominence of the non-Malays and the political supremacy of the Malays. The heart of this balance was the “Bargain of 1957,” a social contract or agreement between the Malay and the non-Malays, where in return for recognizing Chinese and other immigrants’ “. . .legitimate interests (economic rights), their rights to citizenship . . . and residence as well as their . . . freedom to preserve, practice and propagate their religion, culture and language” (Halim, 2000), the Malays retained the major symbols of their nation, that is, their sultans, their special position, their language (as the official language), and Islam as their religion (Halim, 2000). As long as the balance struck by the “Bargain of 1957” was kept, the system worked.
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The Riots of 1969 On May 13, 1969, however, this balance was violently upset by communal riots or direct violence between the Malays and the Chinese, which erupted in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere in the country. The violence was only the tip of the iceberg of a far more serious and deep-seated problem of a structural nature confronting the society as a result of its past. Ethnic plurality, economic dualism, and inequality were too ingrained in the fabric of the society, a result of the colonial era (Andaya & Andaya, 2001). In other words, the riots were a direct consequence of the structural violence that had gradually been building over the years. While The Bargain of 1957 provided a balance in previous years, this precarious balance broke in the run up to the 1969 election (Faaland, Parkinson, & Saniman, 2003). Both Malays and Chinese had their own grievances that led to the eruptions of direct violence. From the perspective of the Malays, they felt that these so-called immigrants were economically much better than them, the locals. The Chinese, together with the Europeans, controlled the country’s economy. Poverty among the Malays, especially in the rural areas, was rife though the country was now independent. The daily state of affairs for most Malays had not changed much, while newly granted citizenship status had made the Chinese politically stronger. In short, Malay grievance was basically economic; at that time the economy was totally in the hands of the Chinese and Europeans. From the perspective of the Chinese, they were unhappy with Malay political dominance, where Malays were given special rights with the use of Malay as the national language, Islam as the state religion, and the maintenance of the functions and status of the Malay rulers (Halim, 2000). These special rights, especially the use of Malay as the national language, were the primary bone of contention for the Chinese. While the riots of May 1969 were inevitable due to past structural income and sectarian imbalances between the Malays and the Chinese, the immediate trigger was the outcome of the federal election. With their newly given citizenship status, the Chinese were able to increase their political strength by giving more support to Chinese opposition parties, and these parties made significant gains compared to the Malay-dominated Alliance Party. It was said that members of the winning party marched through Kuala Lumpur through some largely Malay areas, carrying brooms that symbolized “sweeping” the Malays out of Kuala Lumpur as well as questioning the special rights given to Malays. The official report was that the Malays resented these acts, and riots ensued (Al-Mukmin, 2005; Hwang, 2003). From the perspective of the Malays, increasing Chinese electoral victory was a disaster, as Malay political control was seen as the Malays’ counterbalance to their own impoverished economic situation. Malays were not only offended, but deeply humiliated because they saw that the Chinese benefited from their part of the bargain that gave equal political rights to Chinese, while Malays remained poor and now seemed to be losing their political dominance.
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Actions Following the Riots Following the riots, the government came up with a new formula for political rule. First, to address the lack of Malay economic progress, the government introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP1 ) in 1971 to eradicate poverty and correct for racial economic imbalances. The essence of this affirmative action scheme favored the Malays, who were seen as economically disadvantaged (Abdullah, 1997). The Malay-dominated government asserted the need for some affirmative actions to build a more economically equitable society and to uplift Malays from economic backwardness. Second, as open political competition had led to riots and bloodshed, “politicking” was limited, by the Constitution (Amendment) Act 1971 and an amendment to the Sedition Act that limited dissent and the questioning of sensitive issues (Zawawi, 2004). The Internal Security Act, which permits detention without trial, was also amended at this time to support “intercommunal harmony,” and anyone found to instigate racial tension could be detained under this Act (Khoo, 1995). These amended acts gagged civil society groups. These government actions were aimed to make Malays and Chinese more economically equitable, but sharpened political inequalities between the two groups. The implementation processes not only intensified interethnic tensions but also highlighted intraethnic inequities (Singh & Mukherjee, 1993). The amendments to the Sedition Act and Internal Security Act slowed down the process of democratization and governance in the country, silencing legitimate and peaceful protests by politically marginalized groups.
Present Scenario of the Malay–Chinese Relation Currently, after 38 years since the implementation of the NEP, many Malays are still unhappy with the economic power of the Chinese and their dominance in the corporate sector. Malays fear that the Chinese will use this economic power to wield a political edge at their expense. While overall income inequality and interethnic and rural–urban inequality between the groups have declined, Malays still earn less than Chinese. Overall, Chinese businesses have not been worse off as a result of the NEP. New connections and alliances have emerged between Chinese and Malays as a result of the NEP. By creating business and political ties with Malays, Chinese businessmen have been able to profit from the NEP and avoid its pitfalls (Heng, 1997; Omar, 2005).
1 The NEP, which took the form of five-year development plans, was given a period of 20 years to achieve its restructuring targets and in 1991, was replaced by the National Development Plan (NDP). The NDP placed less emphasis on setting targets for income redistribution, and more on growth and income raising policies (Henderson, Hulme, Phillips, & Nur, 2002; Heng, 1997).
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On the other hand, the Chinese still resent the Malays’ political dominance, their monopoly of the public and government sector, pro-Malay affirmative action policies that Chinese feel institutionalize discrimination against them, and the more recent announcements made by the leadership of the country that Malaysia is an Islamic state. To the non-Muslims, while they acknowledge that Malay identity has always been equated with Islam, the prevailing pressure toward greater Islamization of the society is seen by many to curtail their religious liberties. For example, a man who marries a Muslim woman must adopt Islam. Proselytism of Muslims is forbidden by law, and what might count as such proselytism is rather broad. In addition, decisions of Islamic religious courts have the force of national law, a sensitive issue when one spouse in an existing marriage converts to Islam and makes the other members of the family subject to Islamic law on matters such as child custody (Heim, 2004). Because open discussions on these sensitive issues are not allowed, the discontent between the two groups can be seen on the Internet, where members of both groups vent their hostility against one another. Prejudice and discrimination are felt by both. For example, Malays are less likely to be employed in the private sector which is predominantly Chinese based. A similar discrimination exists against the Chinese in the government sector which is largely made up of Malays. At present, one finds a society divided by ethnicity, language, religion, and culture and, to a lesser extent, by education, occupation, and rural–urban differences. The government recently admitted the precipitous state of ethno-religious tensions and conflicts in the country and set up a 55-member National Unity Panel on July 11, 2007 (Hamidah, 2007). The sudden emergence of this national unity panel indicates something is not right. In the first meeting of the panel, the police revealed that there had been 950 ethnic clashes, a 15% increase in the number of ethnic “fights” in the past one year (Hamidah & Lee, 2007). From the scant report provided, 70% of the cases started with fights between groups or individuals from different races. Despite the paucity of information about these events, the fact that they occurred shows that something is amiss. These are preconflict conditions (Christie, 2005) which need to be addressed if a repeat of the 1969 violence is to be prevented.
The Politics of Ethnic Identity National politics in Malaysia is based on ethnic identity, closely linked with the official ethnic categories. This politics of ethnic identity is intertwined with a politics of difference (e.g., Yuval-Davis, 1997), where differences are based on the notion of differing power relationships. In positioning ethnicity within such a framework, the state-imposed ethnic labeling of Malay, Chinese (also Indian), and the political categories of Bumiputera and non-Bumiputera carries with it different forms of political, economic, and social powers. There are special privileges available through the affirmative action program for the Bumiputera group. There is a symbiotic relationship between the ethnic collective of Malay and Chinese within the political
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and economic spheres. In addition, the Malay ethnic identity has always been tied with Islam, which brings in another angle to the politics of ethnic identity based on power differences. In their daily living, Malays and Chinese carry with them these ethnic and political labels, each accentuating its “Malayness” or “Chineseness” in the interactions. These differences are highlighted because each group is determined to retain its cultural and religious identity for fear of the other. The Malays fear that “. . . if it opened up too much to the non-Malay, non-Muslim communities, especially in matters pertaining to Islam – its most potent identity symbol – ‘the others’ would gain control over the land, given their perceived economic superiority” (p. 5, Muzaffar, 2002). In contrast, the non-Malays “. . . are afraid that if they do not protect their identity, expressed through language more than religion, the Malay majority, which enjoys political preeminence, will emasculate them totally” (p. 5, Muzaffar, 2002). Such fears are capitalized by the government (more so by the Malay leadership than the Chinese) to further perpetuate the politics of ethnic identity. For 50 years, the government’s divisive policy of ethnic identity kept party leaders in power by instilling fear in both groups. To progress as a nation, however, contentions and unfair differences between Malays and Chinese have to be disentangled. Because the political leadership cannot be depended on to do this job, the onus lies on the people themselves. If group members can go beyond these vested political interests and work on the shared/common values between their groups, they may realize that their fear of the other is unfounded, and open up possibilities to reducing the power differential that had kept them apart all this while. In doing so, dialogue and contact can be initiated. The literature on intergroup contact shows that bringing conflicting groups together can improve intergroup relations. For example, contact through cross-group friendships has been shown to be consistently and negatively associated with a range of prejudice measures (Pettigrew, 1997). Research also shows that contact works because it provides knowledge about the out-group, induces empathy and perspective taking, creates more inclusive group representations, and diminishes intergroup anxiety and the perception of threat (Tausch, Kenworthy, & Hewstone, 2005). Of course, this will be no easy task in the Malaysian context because ethnicity has been part and parcel of being and knowing since colonial times.
A Psychocultural Approach to Peacebuilding In this section, a psychocultural approach to peacebuilding based on the shared or common values within the cultures and religions of the Malays and Chinese is proposed. It should be acknowledged that a mere understanding of these shared values may not change the course of history (as the differences between the groups have been entrenched for too long), but it may make a modest contribution to reducing intergroup conflict and pave the way for the groups to come together. At the very least, these similarities should beget some thoughtful, sympathetic, and appreciative feelings for the other, even if they do not end the conflict. In addition, this approach
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will need to be complemented by a number of other approaches simultaneously at the different levels of society (interpersonal, group, and societal), as suggested by the multilevel model of peacebuilding proposed by Christie, Tint, Wagner, and Winter (2008) with its many possible entry points.
Shared Cultural Values Storz (1999) pointed out three similarities within the cultural belief systems of the Malays and Chinese that have implications for their values and behavior in business settings. While Storz limited her discussion only to this setting, I would like to argue that they are also relevant to everyday interpersonal and social settings. The three similarities relate to the view of self, epistemology, and the notion of time. Both the Malay and Chinese belief systems contain an indigenous notion about inner human goodness. The Malay’s budi (kindness, good deed) (Dahlan, 1991) and the concept of ren (goodness, humanity) from Chinese Confucianism (Tu, 1979, 1987) describe the self as holistic and as socially constructed and dependent on others. As such, reciprocity and mutuality are strong values, and this is apparent in people’s attitudes and social relationships. People engage with others as total personalities, focusing more on the social and relational aspects of the transaction rather than on the contents. These values also point to a negotiation style which leans toward a win–win outcome, where what is important is how much both sides have gained in terms of human rewards (the assurance that the social relationships will continue is long term, with both feeling satisfied with the result). These values of reciprocity and mutuality also imply an orientation toward consensus and cooperation, where conflict avoidance is more likely than confrontation. Hence, results are often slower when compared to the more assertive and individualistic Western negotiation styles (Storz, 1999). The second similarity is with respect to epistemology. Both Chinese and Malays share the view that knowledge comes from the head and the heart; thus, importance is also placed on the subjective. In making decisions and solving problems, solutions from other realms such as the spiritual may also be sought. Both systems also imply a cooperative and harmonious alliance with nature, to work with it rather than against it. Third, for both Malays and Chinese, time or how people relate to the world is subjective, relative, and closely tied to the self. It can be used to define who one is and how others are to be defined. Thus, if one is a higher status person, it is common to keep the lower status person waiting (Storz, 1999).
Common Religious Values The common values in religions refer to certain standard or principles that people uphold or adhere to, not to the theologies, philosophies, and doctrines of the religion (Muzaffar, 2002). These common values include attitudes and orientations
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which have positive (e.g., honesty, compassion, sacrifice, patience, modesty, etc.) and negative (e.g., selfishness, arrogance, greed, corruption, stealing, etc.) impact on the individual and society, values associated with institutions or the human being’s larger environment which serve to enhance the moral aspect of human existence (e.g., institutions such as the family, marriage, and community), visions associated with the meaning of life and life processes (e.g., while the rites and rituals to some of life’s major milestones may differ, there are similarities in the meanings attached to them), and finally, the human bond, where all people all go through similar life processes.
Reducing Conflict, Increasing Contacts, and the Role of Civil Society Groups Muzaffar (2002) argued that while these common values can be used to propagate ethnic integration, religious and cultural differences do exist and must also be understood more deeply in order to dispel interethnic fear, suspicion, and distrust of the other. He proposed interfaith dialogue as the forum where people from the various faiths can meet, talk, and listen to one another to try to understand the other’s faith and culture. As noted, while there are differences in the belief and practice of other faiths, the objective is not to “correct” but to hear and listen and to understand each other’s side. Because members of both groups have been socialized differently from the other according to their respective cultures, realizing that they do share some common cultural and religion values may force them to reconsider their differences. While Muzaffar (2002) proposed interfaith dialogue to do so, dialogue may not necessarily have religious overtones. It can just be a conversation or a discussion that involves people coming from many levels of society, from community leaders to the grassroots. The important point here is that members of the two groups meet in a face-to-face context to exchange points of view or just talk with one another because the existing norm is for both groups to remain within their own cocoons. Through contacts, discussions, and some joint activities, individuals and groups may come to a better understanding and respect of the other in the hope of gaining trust and building more lasting relationship. The meta-analytic study by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) showed the positive effects of intergroup contact on attitudes in a variety of intergroup contexts. How can these shared values reduce intergroup conflict and bring the groups together? By emphasizing shared values, this psychocultural approach aims to modify people’s perceptions of their differences and expand the level of category inclusiveness (Dovidio, Gaertner, Saguy, and Halabi, 2008). To put it another way, the ethnic groupings of Malays and Chinese are salient social identities, and categorized in this manner, differences between the groups become magnified. Much of this social categorization can be traced to colonial legacies subsequently reinforced by the government’s divisive policy of power differences between the Chinese and Malays. However, social categorization is a dynamic process, and people at any one
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time possess many different group identities and are capable of focusing on different social categories. Therefore, by altering the way people think about members of the in-group and out-group, the proposed psychocultural approach is directed at changing the nature of social categorization or how the Malays and Chinese see one another, which may be done via decategorization or recategorization (Dovidio et al., 2008). In each case, reducing the salience of the original group boundaries is expected to decrease the intergroup bias and conflict, though they do so in different ways. Whereas in decategorization, members of the two groups reduce bias by decreasing the attractiveness of former in-group members, in recategorization ingroup and out-group members reduce bias by increasing the attractiveness of former out-group members to become members of a more inclusive group (Dovidio et al., 2008). Such contacts are especially important in a multiethnic society where religious difference can be a potential source of conflict. While religion is not necessarily conflictual, like ethnicity, it can serve to distinguish one’s self and one’s group, further accentuating the power difference between the groups. Often, the group with less power is more aware of the tension than the privileged group. Currently, there is no formal institution in Malaysia that is taking the initiative to develop within the populace an appreciation of the shared values between the different cultures and religions. However, a number of NGOs and civil society groups such as the Movement for a JUST World, Cultural Development Center, Malaysia Youth and Students Democratic Movement, Aliran, Malaysian Interfaith Network, Interfaith Spiritual Fellowship, Center for Civilizational Dialogue at the University of Malaya, and Institute of Muslim Unity at the International Islamic University are now taking up this challenge. These groups are increasingly becoming more active in organizing activities geared toward increasing public awareness on the issue. While many have their own websites, a few like Aliran and JUST even have their own newsletters and host regular programs for the public. Will this sharing of common values of the cultures and religions of the Malays and Chinese reduce the present intergroup conflict and bring the groups together? It will take time, but given the results of the recent March 2008 election, I am optimistic. For the first time in Malaysia’s 50-year history, many Malaysians regardless of ethnic groups voted for an opposition political front made up of a loose coalition of three parties, a pro-Chinese party, an Islamic party, and a moderate people’s justice party, calling for change in the social and political arenas and to work together as one nation rather than be divided by ethnicity or religion. The opposition was further buoyed by having a charismatic populist leader seen as capable of bridging the gap between the different ethnic and religious groups and providing a viable alternative to the current flagging leadership in the government. The country’s long-standing multiethnic coalition, the National Front (previously the Alliance Party which was renamed after the 1969 riots), lost its two-thirds majority of parliament due to its failure to tackle the grievances of the non-Malays. At the same time, the younger, more-informed Malays also voted for the opposition because of governance issues that have over the years transformed the ruling party into an elected dictatorship. In addition, they criticized the NEP for creating a cosseted Malay elite who have
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amassed considerable wealth at the expense of the poor whose impoverished condition the NEP was expected to address in the first place. While the government continues pitting the fears of each group against one another, the election results showed that many educated Malays and Chinese, especially those living in the urban areas, are no longer buying the ploy. While the National Front still won, they are now seen as being parochial, chauvinistic, and out of touch with the hopes and aspirations of the younger generations. The psychocultural approach proposed is only one of many strategies that will need to be implemented simultaneously with other peacebuilding activities to bring the groups together. This approach involves changes in the attitudes and perceptions of the Malays and Chinese toward one another. The responsibility for making this approach work lies with the people, notably the educated and conscientized groups who are empowered and are able to see beyond the politics of ethnic identity espoused by the political leaders. They will be the voices of the people using the many civil society platforms that are available. These civil society groups can also pressure the government to revisit and reconsider existing documents that have been drawn up that deal with the issue of a united nation. One that is especially relevant is Vision 2020. Vision 2020, drawn up by the government in 1991, has the goal of making Malaysia into “. . . a united nation, with a confident Malaysian society, infused by strong moral and ethical values, living in a society that is democratic, liberal and tolerant, caring, economically just and equitable, progressive and prosperous, and in full possession of an economy that is competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient” (http://www.wawasan2020.com/vision/p2.html), by 2020. The nine central challenges outlined in the document are extremely important because until members of the different ethnic groups are united as one nation, Malaysia cannot hope to be a developed nation. This document, while important, was not discussed nor debated regarding how the goal was to be achieved. As such, many people either are oblivious to the document or question its usefulness and relevance to them. This is a major weakness within the Malaysian system of governance; state apparatus like the media or the education system is not put to proper use to promote and openly discuss matters that are related to the people. Some have criticized and belittled the “relevance” of Vision 2020, while others see it as another government gimmick. But I believe that Vision 2020 may successfully reduce intergroup conflict if its policies are transformed into action.
Conclusion It is easy to explain intergroup conflict in terms of majority–minority relations, where the majority group is viewed as discriminating and insensitive because it is numerically larger and more powerful, and the minority group is discriminated against and stereotyped negatively. Though there is some truth in this, such a view may trap Malays and Chinese in exaggerated and rigidly stereotyped perceptions of each other and lock us in a battle of group blame and bias that is difficult
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to escape. In the Malaysian context, due to the legacy of the past, the picture is more complex because while the Malays are politically more powerful than the Chinese, they are economically more disadvantaged. The affirmative action policies taken by the government after the race riots of 1969 to assist the Malays are seen by many Chinese as discriminatory. However, had the government not taken this position, the structural problem confronting the society may have resulted in more economic injustice to the majority of the Malay population. To a large extent, the NEP can be considered a positive action with respect to peacebuilding because it aims to restructure the society for a more equitable and balanced economic system. However, the NEP’s implementations have been problematic, further distancing the groups, accentuating their differences, and increasing intergroup conflict. Each group, while having a strong desire to preserve its individual identity and tradition, is also fearful of the other, a point recognized and put to good use by the government to maintain its grip on power. This is one of the biggest challenges to the Malay–Chinese relation – how to get the groups to move beyond ethnic (and religious) lines so that they can work together toward having a sense of national collective identity. A psychocultural approach based on shared values within the cultures and religions of the Malays and Chinese is proposed to this end. By modifying the way people think about members of their in-group and out-group, the approach aims to change the perception that each group holds of the other; in creating more inclusive group representations, anxiety and the perception of threat can be reduced. The work of propagating this idea to the people will need to be taken up by concerned conscientized individuals and civil society groups via dialogue or forums. Hopefully, an increase in the right type of contact processes can reduce intergroup conflict. While this psychocultural approach will take time, I am hopeful that it can work if accompanied by other appropriate economic and political approaches. By having something in common, people will be more likely to start to communicate, hold dialogue, and learn to trust and live together as Malaysians, rather than as Malays or Chinese.
References Abdullah, F. H. (1997). Affirmative action policy in Malaysia: To restructure society, to eradicate poverty. Ethnic Studies Report, XV, 189–221. Al-Mukmin, H. (2005). Keranamu UMNO. Kuala Lumpur: Abadi Publishing House. Andaya, B. W. & Andaya, L. Y. (2001). A history of Malaysia. London: Macmillan. Christie, D. J. (2005). The practice of peace psychology: Entry points for peacebuilding opportunities. Paper presented at the Ninth International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 19–29. Christie, D. J., Tint, B., Wagner, R. V. & Winter, D. D. (2008). Peace psychology for a peaceful world. American Psychologist, 63, 540–552. Dahlan, H. M. (1991). Local values in intercultural management. Malaysian Management Review, 1, 45–50.
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Dovidio, J. F., Gaertner, S. L., Saguy, T., & Halabi, S. (2008). From when to why: Understanding how contact reduces bias. In U. Wagner, L. R. Tropp, G. Finchilescu, & C. Tredoux (Eds.), Improving intergroup relations (pp.75–90). USA: Blackwell Publishing. Faaland, J. Parkinson, J., & Saniman, R. (2003). Growth and ethnic inequality: Malaysia’s New Economic policy, (2nd ed.). Kuala Lumpur: Utusan Publications and Distributors Sdn Bhd. Halim, S. (2000). Globalization and the challenges to Malay nationalism as the essence of Malaysian nationalism. In L. Suryadinata (Ed.), Nationalism and globalization: East and West (pp. 132–174). Singapore: ISEAS. Hamidah, A. (2007, July 12). Unity must prevail for continued peace and a safe Malaysia. New Straits Times, p. 25. Hamidah, A. & Lee, D. (2007, July 13). Panel wants Institute of Ethnic Relations set up. New Straits Times, p. 2. Heim, S. M. (2004). A different kind of Islamic state. Retrieved August 10, 2008 from http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3136 Henderson, J., Hulme, D., Phillips, R., & Nur, N. A. M. (2002). Economic governance and poverty reduction in Malaysia. Retrieved March 25, 2008 from http://www.gapresearch.org/ governance/MalaysiaReportMay2002.pdf Heng, P. K. (1997). The new economic policy and the Chinese community in Peninsular Malaysia. The Developing Economies, XXXV-3, 262–292. Hwang, I. W (2003). Personalized politics: The Malaysian state under Mahathir. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Khoo, B. T. (1995). Paradoxes of Mahathirism: An intellectual biography of Mahathir Mohamad. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Muzaffar, C. (2002). Common values of the religions and faiths in Malaysia. Retrieved February 23, 2008 from http://www.just-international.org/article.cfm?newsid=20000243 Ninth Malaysia Plan. (2006–2010). Kuala Lumpur: Percetakan Nasional Berhad. Omar, A. (2005). Origins and development of the affirmative action policy in Malaya and Malaysia: A historical overview. In R. Mason & A. Omar (Eds.), The Bumiputera policy: Dynamics and dilemmas (pp. 13–29). Penang, Malaysia: Universiti Sains Malaysia. Pettigrew, T. F. (1997). Generalized intergroup contact effects on prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 173–185. Pettigrew, T. F. & Tropp, L. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 751–783. Singh, J. S., & Mukherjee, H. (1993). Education and national integration in Malaysia: Stocktaking thirty years after independence. International Journal of Educational Development, 13, 89–102. Snodgrass, D. R. (1980). Inequality and economic development in Malaysia. UK: Oxford University Press. Storz, M. L. (1999). Malay and Chinese values underlying the Malaysian business culture. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 23, 117–131. Tausch, N., Kenworthy, J., & Hewstone, M. (2005). Intergroup contact and the improvement of intergroup relations. In M. Fitzduff & C. E. Stout (Eds.), Psychological approaches to dealing with conflict and war (Vol. 2, pp. 67–108). Westport, CT: Prager. Tu, W. M. (1979). Humanity and self cultivation: Essays in confucian thought. Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press. Tu, W. M. (1987). Confucian ethics today: The Singapore challenge. Singapore: Federal Publications. Vision 2020. http://www.wawasan2020.com/vision/p2.html Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. London: Sage. Zawawi, I. (2004). Globalization and national identity: Managing ethnicity and cultural pluralism in Malaysia. In Y. Sato (Ed.), Growth and governance in Asia (pp. 115–136). Honolulu: AsiaPacific Center for Security Studies.
A Positioning Analysis of Moro Women’s Participation During and After the MNLF–GRP War Brenda S. Batistiana
Using positioning theory as the analytical lens, this study provides a description of the way women of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) positioned themselves and were positioned by MNLF men in their stories and conversations about their participation during and after the war of the MNLF against the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) from 1972 until after the signing of the MNLF–GRP Final Peace Accord in 1996. The term “Moro” refers to Muslims of various cultural-linguistic groups in the islands of the Mindanao-Sulu region of southern Philippines, who, because of their armed resistance, were not subjugated by Spanish colonizers in the 16th to the 19th centuries (Che Man, 1990; Buendia, 2005). They also resisted American colonization in the 20th century and have continued to assert their self-determination to the present time. One of the organizations that continued the Moro’s fight for selfdetermination is the MNLF, which was formed in 1969 by young secular-educated Moros led by Nur Misuari (Che Man, 1989; Buendia, 2005).
Positioning Theory Harre and van Langenhove (1999, p. 1) defined positioning theory as the “study of local moral orders as ever-shifting patterns of mutual and contestable rights and obligations of speaking and acting.” From the perspective of this theory, individuals, on the basis of their believed personal attributes and moral rights and duties in a specific setting and time, establish, in their every utterance, positions for themselves both in an immediate relation to the other person(s) in a conversation and in relation to the many other related exchanges that make up patterns of discursive exchange, and simultaneously position the other person(s) in the same conversation or exchange (Winslade, 2005). Unlike the concept of roles as defined in the Role Theory, these positions, according to Harre and van Langenhove (1999), are not given and static. Rather, they are situation specific, relational, and transforming. A position is situation specific and relational because the position that one takes in a discourse will depend on his or C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_10, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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her understanding of one’s rights, duties, and obligations in relation to the other person(s) in the specific setting and time of the discourse. Apart from position, the other elements of a discursive action are storylines and speech acts (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999). According to Louis (2008, p. 26), storylines are “narrative conventions according to which social episodes unfold.” On the other hand, a speech act expresses the illocutionary force of an utterance or action (Harre & Slocum, 2003). To highlight the value and application of this concept of positioning theory in understanding human interaction, it is important to understand the concept of social constructionism, which “stresses that social phenomena are to be considered to be generated in and through conversation and conversation-like activities” (Harre & van Langenhove, 1999, p. 3). From this perspective, social reality is “not given or perceived, but is co-created or co-developed by the contributors to the discourse (or conversation)” (Schmidle, 2008, p. 190). Thus, in examining the three elements of a conversation, we will be able to understand social behavior and relations that emerge in and from conversations and similar activities. We use these concepts of positioning theory in analyzing the narratives of the women and men of the MNLF about Moro women’s participation during and after the war, because through this we will be able to unravel the way they jointly created meanings about their identity as Moro women not only in relation to Moro men, but also vis-a-vis their participation in the struggle of the MNLF for the self-determination of the Bangsamoro (Moro State). For a better appreciation of these narratives, this chapter presents a historical review of the armed conflict in Mindanao, particularly the part that involves the MNLF.
The Mindanao Conflict Situation and the MNLF: A Backgrounder The armed conflict in Mindanao, which started during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines in the 16th century, is listed as second oldest in the world after the conflict between North and South Sudan (Schiavo-Campo & Judd, 2005). The Moro people resisted Spanish and American colonization in the 16th and 19th centuries, respectively. Though the conflict subsided after the declaration of Philippine national independence in 1946, they continued to assert for their independence through peaceful means (Lingga, 2004). The conflict flared up again when Mindanao was used in 1951 by the Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR) led by the then Secretary of Defense Ramon Magsaysay as a resettlement area for former communist rebels from Central Luzon to quell tensions in the traditional hotbed of peasant unrest in Luzon island (Hayami, Quisumbing, & Adriano, 1990, p. 44). The national government also encouraged migration to Mindanao to relieve population problems in Luzon and the Visayas. Thus, the non-Moro population in Mindanao increased from 2,010,223 in 1948 to 6,294,224 in 1970 (Che Man, 1990, p. 60). The conflict was also
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exacerbated by the entry of logging and mining firms, which displaced a great number of people, and by the Jabidah massacre, in March 1968, in which more than 20 young Moros from Sulu were allegedly killed by soldiers of the Philippine army under instructions from the chief of staff of the then President Ferdinand Marcos (Cagoco-Guiam, 2005). It was against this backdrop that the MNLF was formed. In late 1960s, a group of young Moros, convinced that they could no longer rely on the formal government system to protect and advance the inherent rights and interests of the Moros, began guerrilla training in Sabah. In 1969 this group, led by Nur Misuari, formed the MNLF and its armed wing, the Bangsa Moro Army (May, 2002). By early 1970s, triggered by the declaration of Martial Law, the MNLF went to war against the GRP. Their central demand was for a separate Bangsamoro or Muslim nation, comprising the (then) 23 provinces of Mindanao, Sulu, and southern Palawan (May, 2002). Countless Moro women actively participated in this war of the MNLF with the GRP (Angeles, 1996). In the first few years after the formation of the MNLF Women’s Committee in 1972, women’s activities were in the areas of recruitment and consciousness raising among the Muslims. Generally, they were not expected to be fighters. According to Angeles (1996), Chairman Misuari tasked women in the battlefront to provide moral support to the men and take care of wounded fighters. The women also took care of health and sanitation in the camps and provided support to the widows and orphans of the MNLF fighters. They likewise assisted in the negotiations of the MNLF with the government by providing clerical support, doing research, and disseminating propaganda materials. Angeles (1996) further stated that though it was not the intention of the MNLF to bring women to the battlefront, there were women who willingly participated in combat. Further, because of sexual abuses experienced by Muslim women during military raids of the villages, the MNLF organized the Women’s Auxiliary Forces and provided military trainings for women. Some women thus participated in the combat. Other women, functioned as couriers, brought supplies to MNLF camps, and served as communication links among MNLF members in the hills, camps, and villages. There were those who acted as “intelligence” in urban operatives and were responsible for bringing the wounded fighters to local hospitals and for making arrangements for doctors and nurses to go to the wounded combatants hiding in the hills (Angeles, 1996). In 1976, the GRP and the MNLF leadership signed the Tripoli Agreement through the mediation and participation of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), more specifically the Quadripartite Ministerial Commission, chaired by Libya (Cagoco-Guiam, 2005). The Tripoli Agreement established a ceasefire and provided autonomy in an area encompassing 13 provinces of Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan (May, 2002). The MNLF, however, pulled out of talks over the implementation of the Tripoli Agreement when the then President Marcos made clear his intention to hold a plebiscite in the proposed autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao. The plebiscite subsequently went ahead but was boycotted by the MNLF and its supporters (May, 2002).
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In 1986, the Bangsa Moro Women’s Professional and Employees’ Association, which was an MNLF organization for women but with separate registration in the Securities and Exchange Commission of the Philippine government, was formed (Angeles, 1996). They performed two major functions, to wit: (a) further articulating the issues affecting the Muslims and (b) helping in providing financial support to the MNLF. With this organization, the MNLF women were more encouraged to participate in the affairs of society. The Philippine Constitution of 1987, which was formed after the 1986 EDSA People Power One, made specific provision for the creation of an Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). However, assessing the process to be used for the creation of the ARMM to be severely flawed, the MNLF opted not to be part of it. Then, in the mandated plebiscite in 1989, as the MNLF expected, only four of the 13 provinces and none of the nine cities within the proposed autonomous region voted to join the ARMM (May, 2002). Thus, the MNLF reiterated their demand for independence. With the ensuing sporadic armed confrontations, women of the MNLF resumed their duties as called for by the situation (Angeles, 1996). Nonetheless, there were also other women’s groups, such as the Mindanao Peace Weavers and the Mindanao Commission on Women, that emerged and called for women’s participation in a nonviolent resolution of the armed conflict in Mindanao (Abubakar, 2002; Arnado, 2002; Margallo, 2005). Upon his assumption of the presidency in 1992, President Fidel Ramos revived the negotiations with the MNLF. The eventual outcome was a peace agreement, signed in Jakarta on September 2, 1996. This established a Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD) and a Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD). This 1996 Peace Agreement between the GRP and the MNLF was described to have officially ended the 24-year-old struggle waged by the MNLF for independence and later for autonomy (Bauzon, 1999). However, the implementation of the 1996 Peace Agreement was assessed to be a dismal failure as it did not effect any change in the area, not even the delivery of basic services that the people needed the most (Mercado, 2003).
Women During and After the War The study of Angeles (1996) on the participation of women in the MNLF showed a long list of women’s activities before and during the war of the MNLF with the GRP and demonstrated the Moro women’s bravery in performing all these activities. An MNLF commander, whom Angeles interviewed, also proudly shared that of the hundreds of MNLF members who surrendered to the government, not one was a woman. She also unraveled the evolution of women’s role, from being sympathizers to being formal members of the MNLF, as well as of their agenda, from the general concerns of the MNLF to the participation of Moro women in the affairs of society. Angeles ended her paper with challenges on the future directions of the MNLF women considering a statement of Chairman Misuari during a visit in New York
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regarding the complementary roles of men and women in Islam, with women usually controlling matters relevant to the home and men dealing with matters outside the home. This present study sought to go deeper into this study of Angeles by examining, in light of the concepts of positioning theory, narratives regarding these activities of the Moro women. Various researches in other countries show strong interest in the kind and extent as well the outcome of the participation of women in wars and revolutions. A review, however, showed that these studies focused more on gender roles and not on the examination of stories and conversations to surface the meanings that women and men associate with these roles. There is a dearth of discursive psychological research on the topic. Given the myriad roles that women have played in wars, many of these studies argued against the underlying essentialist perspective used. For instance, in the wars in Nicaragua, South Africa, Vietnam, and Southern Sudan, women acted not only as camp followers, caregivers, and providers, but also as combatants (Afshar, 2003). In El Salvador, 30% of guerillas were females (Pampell, 2002). In Palestine, Muslim women also engaged in combat (Holt, 2003). In Angola, women were involved in the war alongside men (Ducados, 2000). In Vietnam, women served as air-raid wardens in the north and fought along the men in the south (Taylor, 1999, cited in Afshar, 2003). Various studies also showed that though many women supported and participated in the wars, a much bigger number were involved in peace work. For instance, many women spearheaded various peace initiatives in the Republic of Congo (Ernest, 1997), Chile, Iran, Ecuador, India, Zimbabwe, Bougainville, Burundi, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia (Conaway, 2005). Other roles played by women during the wars were, among others, as negotiators and mediators mostly at the community level (Arnado, 2002), providing relief assistance to affected communities (Abubakar, 2002; Pampell, 2002), and promoting peace education (Conaway, 2005). However, as asserted by Quintos-Deles (2006), women can be found in all peace endeavors, except at the negotiating table and decision-making posts. Moreover, reviewed studies show a common picture of women after the war. More often than not, women who were actively engaged in the battlefield and in peacebuilding initiatives were forced to revert back to their traditional gender roles. This was the case in Angola, Iran, Nicaragua, and El Salvador (Bouta, Frerks, & Bannon, 2005; Moghadam, 1995; Ducados, 2000; Nakamura, 2002; Montoya, 2003).
Research Objectives Using the concepts of positioning theory, this research sought to understand meanings of Moro women’s participation during and after the war between the MNLF and the GRP. To surface these meanings, this study identified and described the
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three elements of a discursive action – that is, positions, storylines, and speech act or illocutionary force – in the narratives regarding Moro women’s participation during and after the war. In general, this research sought to answer the question: How do the MNLF women and men position the Moro women in their stories and conversations about the participation of Moro women during and after the war?
Method Narrative Method Answers to the research question were drawn from the narratives of a sample of Moro women and men of the MNLF. This type of method was used because it provided the form of data needed to reexamine social meanings of behaviors using the concepts of positioning theory. Further in personal narratives, individuals are also able to express their own versions of reality (Ochs & Capps, 1996). This form of inquiry also highlights the relationship between the narrator and the listener, as well as the importance of the time and space in which the narration took place (Ochs & Capps, 1996). These factors are considered important in understanding the positioning of the Moro women.
Participants Because of limited resources, the focus of this research was only on the Maguindanoan women of the MNLF. The Maguindanaoans represent one of the major ethno-cultural groups in Mindanao. The others are the Suluanos and the Maranaos. The groupings of the provincial revolutionary committees of the MNLF coincide with these three major ethno-cultural groups (Che Man, 1990, p. 82). Maguindanao is also one of the five provinces in Mindanao with a Muslim majority. Figure 1 shows the location of Maguindanao. Among the three major ethnocultural groups in Mindanao, the Maguindanaoans were the most accessible to the researcher. I used purposive sampling method, particularly critical-case and criterion-based sampling methods, to identify the participants of this research. Critical-case sampling is a strategy where sources that are deemed to provide rich data are selected (Kuzel, 1999). For this research, the critical case was the Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Associates, Inc. (KFPDAI), which is a nongovernmental organization based in Cotabato City. KFPDAI was formed by the MNLF years after the signing of the 1996 Peace Agreement. Its present executive director is a woman and a former combatant of
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Fig. 1 Map of the Philippines with arrow pointing at Maguindanao
MNLF. The chairperson of the board of directors of KFPDAI is a man and also a commander of the MNLF. To become a leader or member or staff of KFPDAI, one has to be a combatant or a child of combatant(s) of MNLF. A former colleague in a nongovernmental organization introduced me to the executive director of the KFPDAI. In selecting the individual participants, I used the criterion-based sampling method, in which individuals should meet a set of criteria to be selected (Kuzel, 1999). These criteria were: (a) length of time in MNLF as combatants and peacebuilders; (b) gender – that is, representation of both males and females; but as this research was about women, there would be more women; and (c) a leader, a core staff, or a supporter of KFPDAI. Using these criteria, the executive director selected nine women combatants and five men combatants of MNLF as participants. The ages of nine women combatants ranged from 37 to 53 years; the ages of the men participants ranged from 36 to 55 years. Upon their request, the names of the women participants are shown in Table 1.
180 Table 1 Women participants
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Names
Age
Number of years in MNLF (as of April 2008)
1. Hadja Giobay Diocolano 2. Ginambai Ibrahim 3. Hadja Sally Diocolano 4. Hadja Bai Albaya Wampa 5. Nolinda Binangon 6. Hadja Muhmina Abdullah 7. Baingan Baganday 8. Normia Diocolano 9. Hadja Nurlailah Abubakar
53 53 52 45 47 43 40 37 43
39 37 35 32 32 28 27 27 27
Questions To elicit the narratives of the women participants about their participation in the war between the MNLF and the GRP, I asked the participants: “Please describe your life and experiences during and after the MNLF-GRP war.” On the other hand, the men participants were asked: “Please describe your experiences with women-combatants during and after the MNLF-GRP war.” They were left free to decide on where to start and what to emphasize in their stories. To facilitate the identification of themes of the narratives, the question asked was: “What key topics can you identify from the stories?” Then to facilitate the sharing of reflections, the question asked was: “Given your narratives (personal experiences): (a) what can you say about Moro women’s participation during and after the MNLF– GRP war? (b) what should be done to strengthen Moro women’s participation in peace and development?” The last question was an implementation of an agreement of the KFPDAI with Peace and Equity Foundation, which funded the focus group discussions (FGD).
Data Collection and Analysis Procedures From August to September 2007, I did initial interviews with the executive director and two men leaders of MNLF in the office of the KFPDAI. Then on April 2008, FGD were held in Cotabato City. The women participants were grouped into one FGD with me as facilitator, and the men participants had their separate FGD, which was facilitated by a colleague from a nongovernmental organization operating in Mindanao. Each FGD had a documenter. Both documenters were staff members of the KFPDAI. The FGD had five parts. The first part was the storytelling or sharing of narratives about women’s participation during and after the MNLF–GRP war. In the second part, the participants were asked to identify the key themes of their sharing. To do this, all participants were given idea cards (sized 8 × 5 inches) and markers. They
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wrote the topics in these cards – one topic per card – and posted them on the board. The facilitator put together cards with the same contents. At the end was a summary of topics and elements of each topic. The facilitator also added more themes that she thought were missed and asked the participants for validation. The end result was transferred into a mind-mapping tool (i.e., Figs. 2, 3, and 4) for the participants’ better appreciation and validation of their discussion outputs. In the third part of discussion, the women’s and men’s groups merged to present and discuss their FGD outputs. The facilitators asked them to react to the presentations. Then in the fourth part, each participant was asked to share her/his reflections on their presented summaries of identified themes. The fifth and last part was a discussion of concrete actions that the participants could do in response to the results of the FGD. The positioning of Moro women during and after the war were inferred from the: (a) narratives, (b) list of identified themes shown in Figs. 2, 3, and 4, and (c) reactions of women to the FGD results of the men and vice versa. Analysis included the identification and analysis of positions, storylines, and speech acts of the narratives and conversations.
Results This section presents a positioning analysis of the narratives of the participants during the interviews and FGD.
How the Participant Women Wanted to be Regarded I introduced this research project to Hadja Giobay Diocolano, the executive director of KFPDAI, as a personal endeavor to understand the lives and experiences of the former women combatants of the MNLF. I also told her that the resulting research article would be included in a book on Asian peace psychology. So in my formal communications, I requested her to search for female ex-combatants of the MNLF, who were willing to share stories about their experiences during and after the war of the MNLF with the GRP. I also requested her to explain to them how these stories would be used. I titled the proposed FGD as “A Workshop on Women Ex-Combatants of the Moro National Liberation Front.” Before the formal start of the FGD, however, a staff of KFPDAI approached me and told me to look at the streamer that had the title of the workshop. She said that upon the instructions of the MNLF women leaders, the prefix, ex before combatants, was deleted. To explain, the women leaders of the MNLF said that they preferred to be regarded as active combatants though using nonviolent means because the pursuit of the MNLF for self-determination has not yet been realized; thus, their struggle continues to this day.
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Fig. 2 Part 1 of women’s FGD results
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Fig. 3 Part 2 of women’s FGD results
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Fig. 4 Summary of men’s FGD results
Moreover, they emphasized upfront that they willingly joined this FGD because they understood that the activity was not for the purpose of generating funds, but for the purpose of understanding and publishing the participation of the Moro women in the MNLF struggle for self-determination of the Bangsamoro. Related to this, they also requested that their names be cited in this chapter so their children and their offspring and other people would know that they performed their roles in the struggle of the Moro people. These utterances of the women participants at the beginning of the FGD clearly demonstrated their storyline, their positioning, and the illocutionary force (social meaning) of their participation in the FGD. The storyline is that the MNLF struggle for the self-determination of the Bangsamoro persists but through nonviolent means and that this research is a way for their children and other people to know or remember that the Moro women are active players of this struggle. Their position can be drawn from their storyline; that is, they are active combatants of the MNLF (in fulfillment of their duties and obligations as Moros) and they were willing participants
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of this research (so as to let the next generation know that they fulfilled their duties). Because they positioned me, the FGD facilitator and researcher, as a means to make their stories known and remembered, then they opened themselves up and willingly shared their stories to me (i.e., the act or illocutionary force). That ushered in the first episode of our relations.
Summary of Themes of Shared Narratives During the FGD, the women summarized the themes of their stories in one figure. This figure is divided in this chapter into two parts (i.e., Figs. 2 and 3), for better reading. Items in these figures that are both in italics and in parentheses do not refer to the participants but were drawn from their stories about other Moro women. The men, who had a separate FGD in the same workshop, came out with their own summary of their narratives. This is shown in Fig. 4.
Women’s Reasons for Joining the MNLF Most women participants said that they joined the MNLF during Martial Law as student cadres belonging to clandestine student organizations. At that time, they shared, they were surprised to know that more than 50% (up to 80% probably) of Moro students – both males and females – in their respective schools were fellow revolutionaries. They said that they joined because of their belief in the MNLF ideology, specifically in its pursuit for the creation of a Bangsamoro state that is autonomous from the predominantly Christian government. They requested this to be emphasized in this chapter. Thus, this reason was not only placed on top of Fig. 2 but was also written in all capitals, BELIEF IN MNLF IDEOLOGY. Another cited reason was to show support to their loved ones, such as father, brother, husband, and aunt, who belonged to the MNLF. They also shared that there were women who were forced to join because of fear of being sexually abused by soldiers. This latter reason was emphasized by both women and men participants. As a woman participant said: We had no choice because whenever soldiers come to our house, the first question they would ask was “Do you have chicken?” They asked a lot of questions . . . last of which was, “Do you have young unmarried daughters?” So the women that we organized in the communities had no choice but to join the struggle. They feared being sexually abused if left at home. Worst, if the soldiers chanced upon you at home, either they would bring you to their camps or rape you in front of your family . . .
The women participants, however, said that joining the struggle out of fear happened also to men. They shared that there was a young man with skin disease who passed by a government soldiers’ checkpoint. Because the soldiers suspected his disease to have been acquired in the jungle as a rebel of the MNLF, they killed him. That was very tragic to the mother as the young man was her only child.
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Because of these experiences, many more women were recruited by friends and MNLF propagandists. The others lived near the MNLF training area, so it was easy for them to join. There were those, however, who joined out of curiosity. Nevertheless, because everyone was required to go through what they call a “politicalization training” where recruits were oriented on the MNLF agenda, the common thread that eventually bound them was the belief in the goals or as they called, “ideology,” of the MNLF. Continuing their stories, the women combatants shared that their experiences of the atrocities of war have made them very determined to pursue their present struggle through nonviolent means. The storyline of these narratives has five parts: (a) the pursuit of the MNLF for self-determination of the Bangsamoro was supported by majority of Muslim students, both males and females; (b) experiences or threats of sexual abuse by government soldiers forced many women to join the war; (c) though the women joined the MNLF for varied reasons, they sustained their participation because of their common belief in the MNLF ideology; (d) men experienced the same abuses as women; and (e) experiences of the atrocities of war have made them determined to pursue their struggle through nonviolent means. Consistent with this storyline, the women participants positioned themselves, based on their believed rights, duties, and obligations, as cadres of the MNLF and active participants of the struggle for the self-determination of the Bangsamoro. Along these storyline and positioning, the illocutionary force (meaning) of their joining the war and their present pursuance of the struggle through nonviolent means can be illuminated.
Women’s Participation in the MNLF–GRP War Accounts on the participation of Moro women in the war showed that they generally performed varied roles supportive to the male combatants. Though only supportive, these roles, in the view of both the women and men participants, were critical because without them it would have been impossible for the male fighters to sustain the rebellion. Their primary roles and tasks included, among others, information dissemination, solicitation of funds, food preparation and distribution, transporting of ammunitions, giving of first aid, and performing surgical operations (i.e., to remove bullets from the bodies and to amputate severely injured arms/feet/legs) for injured combatants and civilians and teachers of children in the camps. They likewise emphasized that they ensured the continuity of the struggle by forming their own children as next generation of revolutionaries. They considered themselves as the force behind the male fighters. A woman participant even said that it was she who pushed her husband to join the armed struggle. A man participant also shared that it was his wife who reminded him of his being a mujahideen (a Muslim fighter or a warrior of Allah). The women and men participants said that women also joined in the planning and strategizing process as members of the Central Committee of the MNLF.
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There were also times when women were obliged to join the fight. This was when the MNLF camps were raided. The men participants also said that women joined their “0 hour” where all MNLF male and female combatants simultaneously raided government military camps along roads and highways. However, according to the men, women could not join in the battlefield because their presence tended to divide their attention. This positioning of women by men was not rejected by the women participants. They said that in Islam, men are obliged to protect the women. However, a woman participant clarified that such a relationship may be true only to them, Maguindanaoans. She said that the Suluanos or Tausugs and Maranaos, which are other ethno-linguistic groups in Mindanao, may have contrary stories because of their differing gender cultures. These accounts brought forward other aspects of the storyline of the narratives, which are: (a) Islam enjoins men to protect the women; (b) women’s role in the MNLF–GRP war was supportive to men, but nonetheless was very critical to the sustainability of the revolution; and (c) this type of relationship between women and men is particularly true to Maguindanaoans and may not be true to the Tausugs and Maranaos. Consistent with this storyline, the women participants acknowledged the role of men to protect the women, accepted the need to get the consent of their husbands or their fathers before assuming any leadership task in the MNLF, defended the acceptability of the lack of women’s representation in the peace negotiation panels, but highlighted the significance of the roles that women play in MNLF and in the struggle of the Bangsamoro. They emphasized the significance of women’s roles through their stories about their heroic deeds during the war, the extent of their training, and types of positions assumed. Examples of stories shared were: Story 1 (from a woman): I and another woman-combatant were at the front line of the Battle of Tran as paramedics. This happened in the 1970s. We did our best to help the injured, and brought the severely injured to the other women in the camp for further treatment. Because of severe fighting and bombing, where five-minute-silence was the longest, we hid in a foxhole. We were there the whole night. While there, a leg of my companion was hit by a bullet. . .
Story 2 (from a woman): I was part of the team that rescued three datus in Matalam . . .
Story 3 (from a woman): Once I visited a hospital and found in one of the beds a MNLF hit man. When I removed his blanket, I saw his hands and feet chained. I went back in the evening and brought with me a saw, which I hid in cream bread. I unchained him. With the help of Allah, no one heard and noticed us. So we went out of the hospital and straight to a waiting tricycle.
Story 4 (from a woman): From Bongao Island, I went to Cotabato City via a boat supposedly to deliver a letter. As we passed by soldiers’ camps, we stopped rowing and let the boat follow the waves so as not to be noticed . . . Then the boat capsized . . . I did not know how to swim so I held on to the boat. The water current was very strong that it stripped me. My underwear was all that was left . . . I did not accomplish my mission . . .
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Story 5 (from a man): At that time (Martial Law), the amount of rice that one could buy was limited. The men, 15 years old and above, could not go to the town to buy rice because soldiers would arrest them. So the women took this role. Every two days, a group of women would go to the market to buy rice and bring these to the camp. They would also take this opportunity to bring bullets. They were also the ones who brought mortars and other ammunitions. What a woman would do was to place them in a baby bag and hide them under baby clothes and food. The soldiers did not suspect so she was able to pass by their checkpoints . . . This she did despite the fear of being sexually abused by the soldiers.
Story 6 (from a man): The Battle of Tran in Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat Province was a six-month-long fight. You could hardly see people as they were all in the foxholes. At that time, we had a woman first-aider whose name was Hadja Amina . . . In the midst of heavy fighting, she went to the injured and treated them . . . She was a great woman . . . One day, I got malaria . . . I did not want to go to a foxhole because I was allergic . . . So I was in a house . . . Then one day, a jet fighter attacked us . . . When the roof of the house was hit, she covered and protected me . . . There were so many women like her. They had their own camp in Tipagi . . .
The women described themselves as well-trained. Among the trainings they underwent were on special military operations, self-defense, paramedic, bomb making, “politicalization” (i.e., orientation on the MNLF ideology), and leadership skills. In their view, their training was more comprehensive than those of men because only women were given paramedic training, specifically in the provision of first aid and surgery. This was to allow the men to devote their full-time attention to field combat. Further, they shared that their knowledge and skills were honed not only through training but also through their assumption of different positions during and after the war. During the war, many of them held leadership positions at the barangay, municipal, and provincial levels. They led and composed, among others, the Committee on Health, Committee on Social Welfare, and Committee on Information. They also participated in the planning and strategizing of MNLF activities. Some of them were part and, to this day, continue to be part of the MNLF Central Committee. Through these stories, the women emphasized the importance of their roles in the MNLF and the Bangsamoro struggle.
Women’s Participation After the War The positioning of women in narratives on their participation during the war is the same in the narratives about their participation right after the war; that is, they provided supportive but very critical roles to the men of the MNLF. Along this positioning, a female participant shared that the women were the ones who went around the members of MNLF, who were mostly males, to disseminate information and quell confusions regarding the signed 1996 Final Peace Accord, which was entered into by the MNLF male leaders with the GRP. She said that this was to avert heated arguments that might ensue if the information disseminators were men. Also, coming
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from the same positioning, the women reacted when they were not invited to meetings of the MNLF after the signing of the 1996 Peace Accord. To assert for women’s representation and participation, she and another woman leader attended these meetings even without invitation. The illocutionary force (social meaning) of their gate crashing in these meetings can be best understood in light of the narrative’s storyline and positioning of women.
Women’s Participation in the Formation of Peace and Development Communities The participation of the Moro women in organizing Peace and Development Communities (PDCs), after the signing of the 1996 Final Peace Accord, formed another big part of the narratives of both male and female participants. The women participants highlighted their role in organizing nongovernmental organizations, such as the Bangsamoro Women Foundation, the Federation of United Mindanaoan Bangsamoro Multi-purpose Cooperative, and the KFPDAI. The male participants emphasized the distinctive competence of women in initiating or starting community organizing processes and in introducing and setting up community livelihood projects. According to them, these are the types of work that are difficult for them to do because of the community residents’ resistance. The communities were described to be suspicious of the motives of the MNLF men, but were more open to the entry of the MNLF women. Thus, it was the women who started the organizing process in 25 barangays, and it was them (men) who spearheaded the consolidation phase. The latter, according to the men, was, on the other hand, a weakness of the women. Thus, in their view, women still need the men in organizing PDCs. There were, however, more women organizers. As of the time of the research, according to the participants, women comprised two-third of the peace and development advocates of the MNLF. The male chairperson (a MNLF commander) of the board of directors of KFPDAI further said that they found a woman to be most competent for the position of executive director of KFPDAI. To assume this position, this woman was obliged to seek the consent of her husband. The narratives on the peacebuilding work of MNLF men and women after the signing of the 1996 Final Peace Accord seem to bring forth another episode in the relation of the women and men in MNLF. Here, women were positioned as better than men in community organizing, in setting up and managing livelihood projects, and in providing training on Islamic perspectives on peace in the communities. Men, on the other hand, are positioned as supporting women’s community organizing efforts by performing the organizing consolidation tasks. This change in the positioning of women seemed to have resulted from two factors. One was men’s recognition of the competencies of women. The other factor was the entry in the discursive action of another character, that is, the community residents, who positioned the MNLF women as more trustworthy than the MNLF men. However, to be consistent with a basic element of the storyline, that is on the relation of men
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and women in Islam, women were enjoined to seek the consent of their husbands or fathers before assuming leadership tasks.
Stories of Women’s Struggles, Frustrations, and Challenges During and After the War The women mentioned three general areas of struggles and challenges. These were: (a) the difficulty of balancing their time to fulfill their obligations to their families and the MNLF; (b) the inconvenience of moving out of their comfort zone, such as from a comfortable life of eating three times a day to a pauper’s life of eating once a day during the war, and the giving up of career and personal ambition for the sake of the struggle; and (c) security problems because of long travels and poor transportation facilities and sometimes late-night work. Frustrations were mainly in five areas: (a) the extreme poverty of the people in the conflict-affected communities, (b) less significant governance positions held by women after the signing of the 1996 Peace Agreement, (c) non-fulfillment of MNLF–GRP 1996 agreement, (d) key positions in the ARMM went to politicians rather than to deserving MNLF people, and (e) the possibility of another war and its effects on their children. On the last area, one female participant said: We do not want to go back to war . . . to the mountains . . . We don’t want our children to go through the same experience of hunger and violence . . .So we are exerting our best efforts to pursue our struggle through peaceful means.
Internal factors include their ability to: (a) balance their commitment to their family and to peacebuilding work and (b) speak the language of the people in the communities. External factors include: (a) very supportive husband, (b) very supportive MNLF men, (c) financial support of donor agencies, and (d) assistance of partners from other nongovernmental organizations. One said that the immediate relief assistance from government, donor agencies, and other partners to conflictaffected communities was not available during the war of the MNLF against the government. Their reasons for continuing the peaceful struggle are: (a) love for family and the Bangsamoro people, (b) unsolved injustice and human rights abuses, (c) massive displacement, and (d) experienced discrimination by mainstream society.
Discussion In using positioning theory, this research was able to know not only the narrators’ (participants’) description of Moro women’s activities during and after the war between the MNLF and the GRP but also their subjective positioning of the Moro
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women, particularly the Maguindanaoan women, in these activities. In summary, their narratives point to two episodes in Maguindanaoan women’s participation in the MNLF. The first episode happened during the war and right after the signing of the 1996 MNLF–GRP Peace Accord, and the second episode occurred during their peacebuilding work. In the first episode, the storyline of the narratives contained the following elements: (a) the MNLF struggle for the self-determination of the Bangsamoro, which started in the late 1960s and peaked in 1970s and was supported by the majority of Moros; (b) both women and men experienced abuses in the hands of GRP soldiers; and (c) Islam enjoins men to protect the women; corollary with this was the interpretation that women’s role should be supportive to men. Along this storyline, the Moro women were positioned by both women and men, based on beliefs about their rights, duties, and obligations, as playing supportive, but very critical, roles to the male fighters. Though positioned as supportive players, women were described to have participated in decision-making processes, such as in planning and strategizing of MNLF activities. Such storyline and positioning of women seem to explain the meaning of women’s gate crashing in the meetings of the MNLF men after the signing of the 1996 MNLF–GRP Peace Accord. The illocutionary force was their assertion for women’s representation and participation. In the second episode, the storyline of the narratives included: (a) the people’s suspicion of the motives of the MNLF men in entering and organizing their communities, yet their openness and trust in MNLF women and (b) women’s demonstration of their competence in the management of nongovernmental organizations, such as the KFPDAI. With this storyline, women were positioned in the narratives of men as better organizers of PDCs and more competent in managing a nongovernmental organization. As such, in peacebuilding, women were repositioned as performing the lead role while the men were repositioned as providing the supportive role. To be consistent with their understanding of the teachings of Islam, in this repositioning, women were framed as requiring the consent of their husbands or fathers before assuming leadership roles or positions in these peacebuilding endeavors. I likewise note that repositioning in peacebuilding activities, particularly in the organizing of PDCs, was caused by the entry of another set of characters, that is, the communities, in the discursive action or exchanges. Positioning theory also posits that positioning is situation specific and relational. Consistent with this concept, this research showed that the entry of other characters in the discursive action, such as the community, can change the positioning of women. As the narratives described, it was the entry of the community that ushered in another episode in the relations of the men and women of the MNLF. The women’s stories of their experiences of struggles, frustrations, obstacles, facilitator factors, and reasons for carrying on their participation further deepens the illocutionary force or the meaning they give to their commitment and action to continue their active participation in the struggle of the Bangsamoro. For their next steps after this research, the women participants planned to conduct consultation workshops with other Moro women to discuss their advocacy for more representa-
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tion and participation of Moro women in the governance of the ARMM. The plan of the women participants to conduct consultation workshops among Moro women regarding the participation of Moro women in the governance of the ARMM can also facilitate the entry of more people who can change the positioning of Moro women in their discursive actions and exchanges with Moro men. As a closing note, let me describe my reflexivity, which refers to personal factors that have a bearing on the depth and extent of answers to the research questions (Parker, 1999). My personal advocacy for gender equity and gender equality may have influenced the way I analyzed the narratives of the participants. The quotes and sections of the narratives that were highlighted were my personal selections and thus may not be selected by the participants if given a choice. Thus, this chapter also reflects my own subjective positioning of the Moro women and men. Finally, the results of this research – that is, description of the way Moro women were positioned in narratives on their participation during and after the MNLF–GRP war – may be different if drawn from the narratives of other Moro women and men, such as the Tausugs and Maranaos, or if more Maguindanaoan men and women were involved in the FGD. I recommend the conduct of similar studies. Acknowledgments I would like to thank, first and foremost, Hadja Giobay Giocolano and MNLF Commander Tuna Langalan, the executive director and concurrent chairman, respectively, of the Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Associates, Inc. (KFPDAI) for embracing this research as their own project and for using their own resource for convening the participants and organizing the workshop. I also thank all the participants, especially the women combatants, for their generosity and trust. Truly, I salute them for their heroic examples and dedication to the struggle of the Bangsamoro people. I also thank Mimi Pimentel for facilitating the FGD of men participants and Sanimbai Kalim and Alabai Mikuang for their assistance in the documentation. Special thanks to Peace and Equity Foundation (PEF) for their financial support. Last but not the least, I thank Dr. Cristina J. Montiel of the Department of Psychology of the Ateneo de Manila University for introducing me to positioning theory and for the invaluable guidance in the production of this research article.
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Human-Technology Interface in Philippine People Power Ma. Regina E. Estuar and Cristina J. Montiel
Social psychologist Albert Bandura (2001) suggests that new technologies play a major role in changing the very nature of human influence. Bandura further claims that human functioning and technology form a duality in that “the very technologies they create to control their life environment, paradoxically, can become a constraining force that, in turn, controls how they think and behave” (Bandura, 2001, p. 17). Human agency in the form of nonviolent civic engagement has arisen alongside rapid developments in new technologies. In this age of pervasive and ubiquitous computing, peace scholars as well as technology researchers have delved into the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their potential role in active nonviolence (Ackerman & Duvall, 2000; Downey & Fenton, 2003; Eng, 1998; Foss & Larkin, 1986; Martin, 2001; Rheingold, 2002; Wilhelm, 2000). Pool (1984) recognized that technologies are not neutral. Weapons of mass destruction and mass persuasion have been used to gain power and control over states. In the same way, civilian armed struggle presupposes the use of guns and ammunition to fight the state and the military. In essence, technology can serve both the oppressor and the oppressed (Martin, 2001). Consequently, the same technologies intended for science, military, and business have made their way into other aspects of civilian life, including use of technologies as a tool for active nonviolent action. This chapter examines the nature of the interaction between nonviolent collective human agency on the one hand and the use of technology on the other. We use the Philippines People Power I of 1986 and People Power II of 2001 as cases in point.
Role of Old and New Technologies in Active Nonviolence A review of recent history shows that communication technologies have played a major role in the realm of active nonviolent movements. Dissenters used older forms of communication technologies such as radio, television, cassette, and videotape in building up social strain. In particular, messages of nonviolent yet active resistance were broadcast through the use of traditional forms of communications technology. Martin (2001) provided a list of some of the more well-known cases where communications technology was used during nonviolent resistance. Technologies C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_11, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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used were transistor radios (Algeria, 1961, and Czechoslovakia, 1968), international press (India, 1975), cassette tapes (Iran, 1978–1979), underground publishing (Poland, 1981), underground radios and revolutionary takeover of radio and television stations (Philippines, 1986), use of shortwave radios (Fiji, 1987), television and broadcasting (East Germany, 1989), and international press through smuggled tapes (East Timor, 1991). More recently, newer technologies have further enhanced the collective efficacy of civic groups. The Internet has the ability to disseminate information in a decentralized fashion to a larger audience, with minimal cost. In addition to information dissemination, dialogue is also made possible through electronic mail, forums, and discussion groups without temporal and spatial barriers. The Internet has also been used to propagate political causes (Downey & Fenton, 2003). For example, the Internet has been an alternative venue for political activism as witnessed in the Zapatista’s Net of Autonomy and Liberation (Villareal – Ford & Gil, as cited in Downing, 2001). Media activists also used the Internet to support the Palestinian struggle for human rights (Downey & Fenton, 2003). The Internet was also used in political debates such as the discussion on the detention of Augusto Pinochet (Tanner, 2001). The presence of political activity is found in websites such as (a) democracy groups, democracy watch, and democracy conferences held at http://www.d-n-i.org, (b) public statements and schedule of public demonstrations regarding student movements in Iran are found at www.daneshjoo.org, and (c) political discussion by the opposition is found at www.freenorthkorea.net. Asian countries such as Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, and Vietnam all use modern technology in the form of computers, modems, and the Internet to inform the world of their struggle for political freedom (Eng, 1998). In addition, the Internet is not only a medium of communication but was also an effective vehicle for political transformation as evidenced by China’s Jiang Zemin Personal Crusade against Falun Gong (Abbott, 2001; Zhou & Gregory, 2003) and Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim (Abbott, 2001). Indeed, with the widespread use and convergence of mobile phones and the web, political thoughts and actions become more salient, borderless, and timely.
An Agentic Approach to Human Functioning Bandura described human agency as an act having the following core features: intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness, and self-reflectiveness, all working at the cognitive level. To elaborate further, prior to action, the agent plans the intended acts and goals by cognitively mapping motivations for action and courses of action that eventually help in regulating and shaping the enactment process. Bandura (2001) suggested that with the advent of new technologies, human functioning should be studied from an agentic perspective. The power of human agency increases because of the ability of new technologies to extend and expand human influence at the cognitive and behavioral levels.
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This chapter explores two episodes of active nonviolent political change in the Philippines. It seeks to discover what in human agency has changed or evolved because of these new technologies. The first episode, People Power I, reviews the use of the mass media in overthrowing an oppressive leader. The second episode, People Power II, reviews the use of newer technologies, the Internet, and the mobile phone in causing a corrupt leader to step down.
Conceptual Frame This chapter examines the dynamic interface of technology and human agency in nonviolent political transformations. Human agency is defined as active nonviolent civic engagement. This act is intentional and influenced by the beliefs, goals, and motivations of the agent. Technology is defined in two ways: the tool and the function it carries. ICTs include print technologies such as newspapers, broadcast technologies such as radio and television, and newer technologies such as the computer and Internet technology, and the cellular phone and mobile technology. The interfacing between human agency and technology is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Interfacing between human agency and technology
Method For this study, the phenomenon observed was how human agency in the form of civic engagement evolved over time because of the use of technology, and at the same time, how civic and collective engagement has transformed the nature and
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function of technologies. The study used Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1997) in examining the political, human, and technological interplay during People Power I and People Power II. Both episodes were chosen because of the peaceful nature of the revolution.
Sample Representation Postrevolution historical accounts from books and web articles were scanned and downloaded to serve as data for textual analysis. A question matrix was used as a guide to extract data from written accounts (see Appendix A). To get a balanced data set, appointments and face-to-face recorded interviews with representatives from both sides of the political spectrum were conducted to provide more input and to validate historical accounts. The interview guide (see Appendix B) used both English and Filipino translations to accommodate bilingual conversations.
Procedures Data-Gathering Procedure A total of 25 books for EDSA1 and EDSA2 were digitally scanned in preparation for encoding. Of the 25 books, five were chosen for EDSA1 and four for EDSA2. Limited by the availability of the software to store large files, we had to select from the list of scanned books. Selection of books was based on the depth of description of the episode and the involvement of the author of the book during the event. Web articles were selected using keywords. For EDSA1, keywords used were edsa one, edsa revolution, and people power 1. A total of 13 web articles were used for encoding. For EDSA2, the keywords used were: edsa dos, people power 2, Philippine people power, Gerry Kaimo, Vicente Romano, pldt.com, and elagda. A total of 73 web articles were used for encoding. Key groups and individuals were chosen based on their active participation during the episodes, the frequency of appearance of their names in written accounts, and their availability for interview. Contact numbers were obtained through snowball method during initial interviews and directory search in the Internet. Interviews were conducted during the period September to November, 2004. Ranging from 1 to 2 hours, all interviews, except for two, were recorded on cassette tape and were transcribed for encoding. Upon request of the two respondents, the interviews were recorded through handwritten notes. Two respondents who were not available for face-to-face interviews sent their answers through e-mail. Face-to-face interviews were held at places chosen by respondents, which included offices, schools, restaurants, and barangay centers. All interviews were confidential in nature. Each respondent was given a token of appreciation after the interview.
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Coding Procedure For each episode, books were digitally scanned, web articles were downloaded, and interviews were transcribed and respectively placed in separate folders in preparation for encoding. Using qualitative software to aid in coding, the coding procedure began with a line-by-line scan of each document, beginning with transcribed interviews in People Power I and People Power II. Texts selected were assigned nodes that acted as categories. An initial model showing the historical context of each event was constructed by linking related nodes together. In Grounded Theory, this procedure of free selection of text and node assignment is called open coding, which is an analytic process through which concepts are identified and their properties and dimensions are discovered in data. Identifying categories and subcategories were also included in this procedure. Using the guide questions for interviews and other written accounts, coding was done verbatim. The author used words and phrases coming from the text. The goal of open coding is to let data come out naturally (Strauss & Corbin, 1997). At this point, it is important to note that the act of labeling is not the same as the act of analyzing. In open coding, the raw data was used to label concepts and constructs deemed important. The output of open coding covered an initial listing of potential categories related to the research question. Each document was assigned an attribute indicating the episode and the kind of text. Episodes were classified as e1 for People Power I and e2 for People Power II. Documents were classified as book, web, and interview. For example, if the document fell under the first episode and was a book, then the attribute for e1 book for that specific document was assigned a “true” value, and the remaining attributes were assigned a “false” value. This procedure, though not specifically mentioned in Grounded Theory, was important in sorting out documents for data analysis.
Data Analysis Procedure This section covers a detailed description of analysis of textual data, categorization and comparative analysis, model building, and interfacing. Analysis of words, phrase, and sentences. Data from interviews and written accounts were analyzed by looking at words, phrases, and sentences that were strikingly similar and different between and within events and groups. With the first set of open-coded data resulting from the interviews, an initial model was created by linking nodes that were related, based on responses from the text and of the respondents to the questions. These nodes provided initial meanings and were further validated by going back to the written accounts and searching for more meanings that could be assigned to these words. For every episode, similar texts were assigned to specific nodes. Texts that did not fall under any of the given nodes were assigned new nodes. The comparison procedure used in this study is called the flip-flop technique (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). This technique was used to obtain properties of words, phrases, and sentences. The procedure included comparing perceived definitions and
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asking the opposite meaning (what it is not), degree of use, place of use, and amount of use. The objective of this procedure was to identify properties and characteristics and look for similarities and differences between words to aid in categorization. Assignment of Attributes for Categories. The first set of nodes emerging from open coding was assigned the following attributes: episode, trigger, agency, and technology. For episode, an assignment of the value 1 meant it was a node for episode 1 and an assignment of the value 2 meant it was a node for episode 2. For nodes that did not fall under the two initial assignments, values 4, 5, and 6 were assigned to indicate nodes that covered events after episode 1 and episode 2. Axial Coding. Acknowledging that subcategories would eventually emerge from initial categories, the next step was to create a map of categories linked to subcategories. This procedure is called axial coding. These subcategories emerged based on properties and dimensions that were initially derived in open coding. More specifically, probing deeper into the categories was done by looking for “repeated patterns of happenings, events, or actions/interactions that represent what people do or say, alone or together, in response to the problems and situations in which they find themselves” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 130). The focus of this coding procedure was to look at relationships between categories leading to the identification of causal conditions, intervening variables, and contextual variables. A total of 272 nodes were derived from open coding. These nodes were used to create the initial model depicting the human, political, and technological contexts of the episodes. The two main nodes were People Power I and People Power II. Each main node was expanded by attaching subnodes related to it. This procedure continued until all the nodes resulting from the open coding were placed in the model. Each node or subnode acted as a category or theme and a container for selected texts in the form of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. Axial coding began when each episode was further divided into three main sections: events prior to the revolution, activities during the revolution, and events after the revolution. These sections served as an anchor point and were used to align similar themes together. Each section was further divided into subnodes highlighting agency-related and technology-related nodes. The activities node contained links in the form of nodes (subcategories) pertaining to formation of groups and specific acts of active nonviolent protests prior to, during, and after each episode. The technologies node contained links pertaining to available technology and the use of technology prior to, during, and after each episode. Another objective of axial coding was to separate other nodes that were coded but did not fall under any of the categories. At this point, the themes and connections that were obtained did not yet answer the research question. There was still a need to integrate and refine the model by creating another model for the interface between human agency and technology. The next section describes the procedure. Selective Coding and Interfacing Selective Coding. The first step in selective coding was discovering the central category that represented the main theme of the research. In this study, the central
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category was how human agency used technology in peaceful political transformations. From this central theme, selective coding continued by pulling the essential categories derived from both open coding and axial coding. Here, the themes apt to the research question were purposively selected by writing memos and drawing diagrams that aided in theory integration. The two variables assigned for the central theme were activities and technology. At this point, nodes that fell under these themes were used for the interface. Interfacing. Recognizing the limit of the software to merge large amounts of data, it was decided to interface agency and technology components per episode. From the assigned attributes for each node, the interface was done by first selecting nodes that were assigned 1 for agency and a value of 1 or 2, representing the two episodes respectively, for technology. A logic formula in the form of where scope = x, where x = 1,2 representing documents coded for the respective episodes, union (agency = 1 or technology = y, where y = 1 or 2 ) was used to interface agency and technology. Two files were generated from the interface, one for each episode. Each file consisted of all selected texts containing agency and technology components. For People Power I, a total of 1,367 passages in 50 documents were merged. For People Power II, a total of 954 passages in 98 documents were merged. The resulting files underwent another series of coding and categorization to arrive at the final model for human–technology interface explained in detail in the next section. Modeling. With the new set of texts resulting from the interface, the process of coding was resumed. This time, themes were already predefined. Four themes were used, namely: “seeds,” “agency,” “technology,” and “fruits.” “Seeds” contained agency and technology components prior to and leading to the episode. “Fruits” contained agency and technology components after the episode. “Agency” and “technology” contained components describing acts of agency and the use of technology during each episode. Texts for each theme were transferred to a spreadsheet representing an initial matrix for the theory. Themes were then extracted representing themes for the interface between agency and technology. The final model was then built from these themes and was further refined by checking for internal consistency and logic. It is important to note here that though the focus narrowed down to agency and technology, nodes and themes that did fall under these categories were not disregarded. In Grounded Theory, data that does not fit the present theory may be considered alternative explanations and insights.
Results This section first provides a description of the human, political, and technological contexts for each episode followed by a discussion of the agencies and technologies used in each episode to identify how specific technologies were used in specific forms of nonviolent action. A model for the human–technology interface is then presented with each dimension discussed citing examples from the encoded accounts.
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The section ends with a comparison of the agencies, technologies, and interfaces across episodes, followed by a discussion of the transformation in human agency and in the use of technology across episodes.
Episode 1: Use of Active Nonviolence and Technology to Oust a Dictator Political, Human, and Technological Context during People Power I The seeds of the movement for People Power I began as early as the 1970s when both economic and political conditions in the country led to massive street demonstrations. The protests called for increase in wages, reduction in oil price hike, and church and state reforms. With the emergence of underground movements and student activism, the state declared the nation to be in crisis and imposed martial law. Under martial law, those involved in movements and community organizations and those who openly questioned the state were arrested and detained for subversive acts and violation of Presidential Decree 1081. This increased the loss of trust in the military and the state and at the same time heightened people’s loss of morale. Cause-oriented groups and political organizations sprouted both from the underground movements and middle class. Forms of struggle varied in nature and in size. While some organizations protested in the streets, some organized groups and others formed linkages with other groups. Protests increased after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, Jr. Middle class groups organized chapters and mobilized groups for mass demonstrations through telephone brigades. There was also the formation of alliances and backdoor negotiations with the military, the Left, and the opposition. In the period leading up to People Power 1, the media was controlled by the regime. Filipinos were not aware of the tense political atmosphere unless they could access news in the underground media. Filipinos arriving from the United States would bring in videos of news reports about the Philippines. Some would reproduce foreign printed news and distribute it to groups and organizations. The underground press including Malaya (Free Press) and Mr. & Ms. magazine, which was initially a food and lifestyle magazine, began writing columns revealing the negative truth about the current regime in contrast to the news coming from government-controlled media. This increased the sense of injustice because regular media denied its public the truth. Distribution of foreign news about the Philippines increased the level of awareness as well as the frustration of Filipinos about their current government. The government tried to control the underground press by threatening its editors and disallowing the purchase of paper for printing. The reproduction of more copies was then done using a publications subsidiary of the Church. Aside from underground dailies, information was also disseminated through leaflets during immersion programs and street teach-ins. In some schools, alternative classes were held and mimeographed handouts on human rights, ideologies, politics, and nonviolent
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action were distributed to students, thereby increasing their knowledge and selfefficacy. Media coverage of the funeral of Benigno Aquino, Jr., in Mr. & Ms. magazine more generally gave birth to a range of organizations. Street protests and the formation of anti-Marcos groups increased. Also, there was an increased dislike and loss of trust toward the military. With riots and deaths arising from street demonstrations, the Left and the moderates, despite different ideologies and goals, were united against one common enemy. There was a steady drop in foreign investments because of the growing number of street protests, rallies, and boycotts. These events led Marcos to call for a snap election. The opposition united and proclaimed one candidate, Corazon C. Aquino, wife of the assassinated senator, to run against Marcos. Cory became a symbol against the enemy. The exercise galvanized all political allies to help in the campaign despite differences in goals. It was during this election that the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) was formed. The organization acted as a watchdog during the election and counting of ballots. During the elections, Filipinos were angered by the nationwide massive cheating and deaths of NAMFREL volunteers. Within the same time frame, computer analysts in the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) walked out at the time of tabulation because of inconsistencies in ballot counts. Both the opposition and the Church declared the election was fraudulent and called for civil disobedience. On February 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Armed Forces Vice Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos announced their defection from the Marcos regime. Enrile and Ramos then appealed for the support of the public to join them in their struggle. Church leaders and political leaders made a call to the people to support and protect Enrile and Ramos. People Power I began.
Human Agency and Use of Technology during People Power I The forms of active nonviolent acts were classified into eight agencies. This section describes the eight agencies including the specific technologies that were utilized by each agency. The announcement of defection, increase in number of resisters, and departure and victory through use of radio and foreign correspondent media were coded as Announce Agency. Seeking support for and protection of Enrile and Ramos, a constant appeal to the people to go to EDSA, a call for prayers, food, nonviolent action from the people, defection of other military units, and a call for Marcos to step down were grouped under Call Agency. Initial calls made use of radio. In the succeeding days, underground dailies mirrored the same calls. The formation of human barricades, singing, bringing of saints, praying, gossip, updating of events, discussing political scenarios and dialogue with the soldiers, resting, waiting, and cheering were coded under Street Agency. Technologies used on the street include transistor radios and public address system, and during the later days, television and cameras. Leaflets used to distribute a call to defect from other military units were placed
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under Strategic Agency. Finally, action involving forming and organizing groups to plan courses of action were clustered under Organizing Agency. While there was a massive gathering of people at EDSA, there were other agencies utilizing the very same technologies the movement was using. For example, within the state and the military, technologies were used to caution the public not to support Ramos and Enrile. Announcements on the curfew were also broadcast through government-controlled radio and television stations. Telephones were used during the negotiations with Enrile and Ramos, and with the foreign state advisers. In the same manner, the Church also used its own radio station to call on people to support Ramos and Enrile. Human–Technology Interface in People Power I Figure 2 shows the interface between the agencies and the corresponding technologies that were used in People Power I.
Fig. 2 Human–technology interface in People Power I
Developed Political and Social Awareness. The media played a significant role in the 1986 People Power Revolution (Zunes, 1999, p. 129). In People Power I, print technologies such as antiregime publications of Mr. & Ms. magazine, Malaya, and the Church-owned Veritas publications reported the political and social injustices surrounding civil society. Within the middle and upper class communities, people came home with video tapes of news about the political and social turmoil in the country. Opposition to dictatorial rule was also voiced by underground radio stations such as Radio Veritas, Radio Bandido, and Bombo Radyo Network. These radio stations provided an alternative view by reporting political and social injustices in the country. Highlighted Causes and Goals. During the initial press conference called for by the two defectors, Enrile and Ramos announced nationwide and worldwide that they were withdrawing their support from President Ferdinand E. Marcos (Arillo, 1986). They openly admitted being part of the massive cheating during the elections and said that they could no longer serve a leader who did not consult with them on
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military matters and instead treated them merely as decorations. These statements did not only awaken the consciousness of the Filipinos but also were used to justify the act of treason that was being committed. Facilitated in Creating Instability and Doubt. Enrile and Ramos’ call for support was not immediately embraced by the citizens. There were doubts as to whether civil society would support a group that was closely linked with the president. A member of Padayon told the interviewer, “We heard that they were at the Camp. We did not go right away. Why should we support someone from the other camp? We waited for a sign.” Facilitated in Changing Minds and Action. Within the 4-day revolution, at one point, leaflets were printed and distributed via a helicopter containing the message: We are calling all officers and men of the military and Philippine National Police (PNP) to examine their conscience and be guided by their conviction. If they believe in what they stand for, we ask them to join us. We ask them to bring their troops with them and join us here in Camp Aguinaldo or Camp Crame. Otherwise, we ask them to stay out and not obey immoral orders. From all the thousands of officers and men committed to fight for truth, righteousness, and justice and are now gathered at Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo.” (Arillo, 1986) and this act generated sporadic defections from all units of the military. As with the radio appeal, the response was tremendous (Arillo, 1986).
Facilitated in the Formation of Organizations and Alliances. The availability of communication lines such as telephone, through the phone brigade, helped in the formation of organizations and alliances. A member of Manindigan (meaning to be devoted to a cause; a political group composed of middle and upper middle class business men) said, “The only technology available then was the telephone. So we would conduct telephone brigades to set meetings and to organize mobilizations. We would call each other, meet with different organizations, and form new chapters.” Facilitated in the Formation of Identity. The death of Ninoy spurred the birth of groups across the political spectrum. As told by a member of Bandila, “Every day, a new acronym was formed.” Though varying in ideologies and methods of protest, they shared the same experiences of injustice and had one common enemy. These shared elements led these groups to form a united opposition against the current government. He continued, “We had to unite otherwise we will fail in this exercise.” Disseminated Information to a Wider Audience. Both print and broadcast technologies such as newspapers, tabloids, underground radio, videos of news from abroad, and television helped in information dissemination and information awareness. For example, though Marcos had control over media and the press, Radio Veritas was the medium of communication of the rebels to the public. “Radio Veritas was the only radio station which broadcast the events as the revolution was unfolding. There were no other TV stations which broadcast events related to this. It can be surmised that Radio Veritas led People to EDSA” (Stuart-Santiago, 2000, p. 69). Radio Veritas was a primary mover in (a) informing citizens about the massive cheating during the Snap Elections, (b) inviting the citizenry to join the civil disobedience campaign of former President Aquino, and (c) mobilizing citizens to support Ramos and Enrile in their defection against the Marcos regime (Lumicao-Santos & Domingo-Robles, 1987; Simons, 1987; Stuart-Santiago, 2000). Moreover, when
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Radio Veritas went off the air, people then switched to DZRJ, which eventually became known as Radio Bandido (Tarrazona, 1989). Amplified Urgency to Act. The nation was listening to Radio Veritas, and later on, Radio Bandido for updates during the 4-day gathering at EDSA. Whenever there was a thinning of crowd, a new batch of individuals and groups would replace them because of the constant calls Radio Veritas and later on, Radio Bandido, to proceed to the EDSA. When calls were made to protect a newly acquired television station, people came and formed human barricades between the pro-government troops and the station.
Episode 2: Use of Active Nonviolence and Technology to Remove a Corrupt Ruler Political, Human, and Technological Context during People Power II The seeds of the movement for People Power II began with the whistle-blowing report of Ilocos Sur Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, on the corruption and bribery acts of then President Joseph Estrada. The media was used persistently to criticize the president. The media framed President Estrada as a womanizer, a gambler, a drunkard, and a corrupt. Media exposure of the president’s ownership of mansions and liaisons with women provoked anger, embarrassment, and a sense of moral outrage, especially among middle class readers. The middle class questioned the moral foundation and capability of Estrada to lead the country. Groups of big businessmen, church leaders, activists, friends, and military planned, met, and organized a group ready for the withdrawal of support from the president. During this period of moral unrest, the mobile phone and the Internet were new additions to the communication technologies available for public use. The mobile phone allowed people to send messages to a single person or broadcast to a group. It also allowed for interaction by replying to and forwarding messages in an instant without having to meet in person. The Internet carried with it a similar technology as the mobile phone at a lesser cost. Aside from e-mail, it was a venue wherein people could join discussion forums and chats and create websites to post information. Political humor and satire in the form of what is locally known as Erap jokes were commonly received and forwarded to others through the mobile phone. People discussed and organized protests, motorcades, and marches via the Internet. The transmittal of the petition for impeachment to the Senate paved the way for the use of the Internet for an electronic signature campaign through elagda.com. For a time, signatures could also be sent via Smart or Globe. AntiErap websites sprouted. For example, pldt.com became a portal of antiErap sites and banners. emandirigma.com became a venue for broadcasting information on Senators and jurors, all of whom were bombarded with text messages, e-mails, faxed letters, and phone calls to pressure them in their decision-making. At the same time, the fact that the impeachment trial was broadcast through television and radio heightened
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political awareness and helped Filipinos in forming their own opinion on the matter. Regular protest actions such as lobbying and rallies were partnered with electronic protest and online rallies, worldwide. Electronic banners and symbols were posted in pldt.com. elagda planned a day of protest wherein Filipinos from different parts of the world organized and mobilized themselves to street action. There was also a call for a nationwide strike, boycott of Erap cronies, and nonpayment of taxes in case of acquittal. The gathering of massive groups and individuals at EDSA Shrine was triggered by the Senate vote of 11–10 not to open a bank envelope allegedly containing evidence against Estrada. The trial prosecutors resigned and the trial was suspended. This event triggered protest almost immediately. The 4 days of spontaneous gathering at EDSA Shrine paved the way for the departure of the president from his office. Human Agency and Use of Technology in People Power II The forms of active nonviolent acts were classified into eight agencies. This section describes the eight agencies including the specific technologies that were utilized by each agency. Organizing agency included unlikely alliances with the left wing, Church, unions, farmers, big businesses, and politicians forming a coalition to influence and mobilize people against Estrada. Units and members of the military also organized themselves for defection. Mobilizing agency included gathering of groups to join the EDSA crowd. At the height of EDSA2, close to 100 sectors were mobilized. Announce agency included announcement of defection, withdrawal of support, negotiations, and promise of march to Malacanang. Calling agency included the call to go to EDSA and the call on the enemy to resign. Street agency and virtual agency were similar in nature but differed in the place of action. During EDSA2, streets were filled with emotional outpouring from singing and dancing. Banners and placards from organized groups were displayed. Political discussions and opinions were held on stage. “EDSA 2 was a standing room only indignation rally with the raw and angry display of people power.” At the same time, virtual forms of protest were being enacted through the Internet and mobile phones. Aside from wearing black, symbolic agency included both print and web-based banners and placards. The state also used the telephone and mobile phones in negotiating with the united opposition. At the same time, the Church also called on to the people to go to EDSA for a midnight mass, to join the protests, and to form a human chain from the statue of Ninoy to the EDSA Shrine. Human–Technology Interface in People Power II For People Power II, it would be appropriate to first mention that all the technologies were available for use and relatively accessible because the media was not controlled by the government. There was a variety of newspapers and magazines, as well as the beginnings of its online counterparts. During this time, Internet access was available in most universities and commercial establishments. The interface described in this
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section is the result of the union between the agency nodes and the technology nodes used in the first episode. Figure 3 shows the interface between the agencies and the corresponding technologies that were used in EDSA2.
Fig. 3 Human–technology interface in People Power II
Awakening and Increasing Awareness. Print technologies such as newspapers and tabloids and broadcast technologies such as radio and television maintained their original function of awakening and increasing awareness about the misconduct of the president. After the Luis Singson exposé on the gambling activities of the president, publications in Pinoy Times and the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism followed suit by exposing the large assets owned by the president. Aided in Constructing an Enemy in the Minds of the People. News about the president’s large assets provoked anger, embarrassment, and a sense of moral outrage. Accelerated the Spreading of News about Moral Shortcomings of Estrada. News about Estrada were not only published in print and broadcast over regular television and radio stations, the traditional media venues, but also in newer technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones. The latter technologies were also used by the average citizen to replicate news about Estrada. Widened the Scope of Audience. With functions such as “send to many” for mobile phones and “carbon copy (cc)” for e-mail, people could easily create, receive, and forward news in exponential form. As narrated by the founder of elagda.com, which started the virtual signature campaign on the resignation of the president, “We did not only receive emails from people from the Philippines. The responses were worldwide.” Triggered Innovativeness of Filipinos. Not only did these new technologies change the speed and scope of information dissemination but also added a new flavor to content creation. The innovativeness of Filipinos was evidenced by the variety of Erap jokes that were distributed over cellphones and the numerous satirical websites that sprang up after the traditional media reported on the large assets, mansions, and women of Erap. There were as many as 200 antiErap websites and 100 e-mail groups set up during that period (“People Power uli,” 2001).
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Gave Birth to Newer Forms of Protest. Use of these technologies continued during the impeachment trial. The nation watched the impeachment saga unfold. Street protests were paralleled by the birth of newer forms of propaganda and protest clamoring for the resignation of Estrada. An example is the signature campaign done electronically by elagda.com. As the founder of the website related, “Talk about Erap was in the air and as a result, one of the regular discussions was how to remove a President from office. During one of those discussions, someone asked whether we could recall a President from office through electronic petition. This was also the time when the e-commerce law had just been passed. Eventually, we discovered that a President could only be removed through impeachment. Nevertheless, I posted this question to our e-groups and the responses varied. In the end, I decided it was worth a try so I gathered my technical team and we were up 5 days after conception.” Paved the Way for a New Form of Activism. Aside from electronic petition, the Internet paved the way for a new form of activism. After the elagda, the group transformed the site to emandirigma, which meant cyberwarriors. This site contained contact information for those directly involved in the impeachment trial. The goal of the site was to provide enough information to begin a pressure campaign by bombarding Senators and jurors with a barrage of e-mail, text messages, and faxed messages to influence their decisions regarding the ongoing trial. Another novel example is pldt.com, which began as a venue for expressing outrage against the monopoly giants of telecommunications. As the founder of pldt.com narrated, “We were all into Internet use and there were people who wanted to form a group to fight against the metering scheme that one of the telcos was proposing. I met with people with lost causes just to pick their brains on their experiences in fighting monopoly, just to see what sort of chance we had in fighting this telco giant. It was close to nil. The group’s name was PLDTi for Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications, Incorporated.” However, putting up a group to fight metering did not attract enough people to join the protest. The founder continued, “as much as we tried, it could not get very far. It couldn’t get access to media. It couldn’t be heard by anyone. It couldn’t get exposure until we found out the domain name pldt.com was still available. I registered it and put anything that I wanted to write about including everything about Erap.” Provided a Venue to Vent Anger and Frustration. The site became a venue for people to vent their anger. Because of the storage facility, the website eventually became a portal for all antiErap sites. It contained pictures of rallies, opinion columns, and statements against Estrada. It also contained political humor and satire. Since the Internet was accessible worldwide, people within and outside the country would send electronic placards and banners that would be uploaded in the portal. The founder narrated, “I had Filipinos from all over the world contribute placards via jpegs and gifs images and they contributed and I gave them web space for that. And that occupied about 10 pages.” Aside from the newer forms of protest and propaganda, the Internet allowed people to discuss, plan, and organize street protests right in front of the computer. The interactivity of the mobile phone also allowed people to respond faster without having to go through long, face-to-face conversations. The founder of elagda
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narrated, “The quality of response also heightened emotions of anger and moral injustice because you can feel the outpouring of indignation.” Plus, the sense of anonymity allowed them to be bold and daring without fear of being caught. “You can express yourself without revealing who you really are.” Changed the Form of Mobilization and Increased Participation. Lastly, the relative accessibility and availability of the Internet made recruitment of members easier, faster, and varied with the number increasing exponentially nationwide and worldwide. As the founder of elagda puts it, “I was averaging 300 emails a day with members from within the country and outside. We had elagda New York, elagda Ontario, elagda San Francisco, elagda Japan, elagda Sydney and elagda Riyadh.” Comparison of Agency and Technology Across Episodes Table 1 shows a matrix containing the agencies and technologies across episodes. Available technologies were used in both episodes with People Power I maximizing the use of print and broadcast technologies and the addition of newer Table 1 Agency–technology across episodes Agency
People Power I
People Power II
Organize
Telephone Mimeograph Photocopier Radio Television
Print Internet Mobile phone Radio Television Mobile phone Radio Television Mobile phone
Announcement of defection
Call to people for support
Street protests
Radio Telephone International press Print Radio Telephone Cameras International press Public address
Virtual protests
–
Strategic
Radio International press Print
Symbolic protests
Print
Mobilization
Telephones
Negotiation
Telephones
Radio Television Print Internet Digital camera Mobile phone Print Internet Mobile phone Print Broadcast Mobile phone Internet Internet Mobile phones Internet Mobile phones Telephone Mobile phones
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technologies such as the Internet and the mobile phone for People Power II. In the same manner, forms of nonviolent action such as street protests were present in both episodes with People Power II maximizing on the Internet allowing groups to conduct cyber protests. Comparison of Interfaces Across Episodes A comparison of the interfaces across episodes resulting from the interaction between human agency and technology is presented in this section. Table 2 shows a summary of the interfaces and cites examples for each. Use of media to spread negative information about the incumbent president was present in both events and resulted in a greater level of consciousness and awareness among civilians. From the usual print media and communication channels to the use of the Internet, innovativeness was triggered resulting in numerous antiErap websites, slogans, and virtual banners. Agents of the revolution also used communications technology to alter the quality and quantity of participation and at the same time altered the way information was disseminated. Political slogans seen on television, the Internet, and the mobile phone facilitated in aligning minds and building a shared political frame for expressing opinion and a feeling of outrage.
Discussion This section provides two perspectives in viewing the use of technology and use of active nonviolent action in political movements emphasizing the interplay of the two variables.
Role of Civic and Collective Engagement in Transforming the Role of Technology Use of technology in civic and collective engagements showed a change in the form and intensity of civic and collective engagement. The findings also showed that the nature or function of the technology was extended by the human agent. In the same manner that ICTs originally intended for scientific and military use were made available for public use, the original functions of the technology were also transformed and extended. For example, the original role of print and broadcast technologies was to provide information to the public. In social movements, print and broadcast technologies were also used as alternative sources of information for protests and propaganda action. Communication technologies such as the telephone, mobile phone, and the Internet were simply intended for widening interaction between and among people. However, its use in social movements demonstrated that these technologies can also be used to propagate political causes and political action. Thus,
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Table 2 Human–technology interface across episodes Interface
People Power I
People Power II
Instilled Awakened consciousness awareness
Death of Ninoy Aquino Whistle-blowing report of Death of Evelio Javier Luis Singson on Alternative media made corruption and bribery civilians feel the of the enemy difference between what Uncontrolled media was being said and what exposed immoral acts was actually happening of Estrada Developed political Socially oriented movies Text messages about the and social and plays leader as womanizer, awareness gambler, and corrupt Increased awareness Increasing number of Daily exposure to public Highlighted peaceful protests led by trial of Estrada over the causes and goals middle class radio and television Created instability Announcement of cheating Media exposure of and doubt during snap elections accumulated wealth Changed minds and Daily rallies Creation of elagda.com action Triggered Symbols and slogans Yellow ribbon Virtual banners innovativeness L (laban sign) Protests Daily street protests Worldwide virtual protest Mobilization: Formation of middle class Signature campaign for formation of led groups the resignation of organizations and Estrada alliances Easier and faster Phone brigades by middle Membership was done recruitment of class women inviting through signups in members others to join the cause egroups Altered the Increased Constant call to civilians to Constant text messages quality and membership go to EDSA calling people to go to quantity of EDSA participation Widened scope of Membership of middle Membership of Filipinos members class; membership of living outside the Filipinos living outside country Metro Manila Amplified the Church leaders using Television showing urgency to act underground radio defection of political calling on civilians to go leaders to EDSA Facilitated in Frame formation of Hindi ka nag-iisa (You are Numerous slogans collective collective not alone) cognitions: identity, belief Magkaisa aligned minds and efficacy and under a shared moral agency political frame Frame formation of Emphasis on cheating President as womanizer, collective during snap elections gambler and corrupt injustice and trial of Ninoy Aquino’s assassin (continued)
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Table 2 (continued) Interface Altered information dissemination
Allowed freedom of expression
People Power I Disseminated information to a wider audience Altered the quality Accelerated information dissemination
People Power II
Radio Veritas and capture Text messages calling on of local television station people to go to EDSA to broadcast defection Anonymity Known political figures/TV personalities Phone brigade Text brigade
Outrage and opinion
Outrage, opinion, and humor
the human agent has the ability to redirect the use of technology to further one’s goals and intentions. In summary, the presence of traditional and newer forms of technology across and within each episode showed that there was a change in the form and intensity of civic and collective engagement (Fig. 4). This may imply that as newer technologies emerge, newer forms of active nonviolent action will also emerge. The changing technology may open doors to various forms of agency, which in return may influence the form of the social movement. However, resulting change in the form of civic and collective engagement because of the use of technology does not necessarily imply a change in the very nature and function of the social movement. Political and social factors, including individual and shared events and experiences, will cause the basic characteristics of social movements to remain constant over time. How civil society fights against unjust structures will continue to change, but the essence of why we battle political injustice will remain the same.
Fig. 4 Shaping of technology and human agency
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Individual and collective civic engagements also play a role in shaping technology. Though the form and look of the technology remain constant, across episodes and within episodes, specific technologies were used to enact different agencies. Thus, human agency has the ability to expand, extend, and change the function of the technology to pursue one’s goals.
Role of Technology in Expanding and Extending Human Functioning: An Agentic Approach “The essence of humanness is the capacity to exercise control over the nature and quality of one’s life” (Bandura, 2001). Moving from the individual to the collective, the essence of the collectives is the capacity to influence change in others who seemingly control their lives. Social movements and civic engagement exemplify this as they try to influence others to join them in their struggle for reforms in society. As seen in the episodes of civic engagement, both traditional and new technologies were utilized in extending and expanding human functioning. Individual beliefs about injustice originate from ideologies and the socialization about human rights and democracy inculcated by family and school. The reflective agent then feels restless, asks questions, and seeks alternative solutions. Technology plays a vital role in aligning these individual beliefs to a higher level in that use of print and broadcast technologies to narrate incidents of injustice makes the experience a shared experience. For those who have not encountered such experiences, print and broadcast technologies, as well as newer forms of communications technologies narrating events of injustice, may be used to plant seeds of hate toward the enemy, the result of which generates a sense of injustice and a shared belief in one enemy (Fig. 5).
Fig. 5 Human–technology interface: an agentic approach
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At the collective level, the use of communications technologies also plays a vital role in that it widens the space for discussion of these experiences. If print and broadcast technologies make people aware of political issue and events, new technologies such as the Internet have opened a new avenue to make this awareness interactive. Consequently, through these discourses, organizations and alliances are formed, thereby increasing collective efficacy. With the use of technology, the individual belief is now a common belief: at the same time, collective agency is formed with the alignment of intentions, goals, and motivation. Aside from influencing the beliefs of individuals and groups, available technologies may also be used to plan courses of action, organize, and mobilize people to engage in collective action. With the advent of newer communications devices embedded with network and mobile technologies, utilization of such devices has also expanded human influence as evidenced by the increase in the quantity as well as the quality of participation. Lastly, persistent and constant use of technologies to disseminate information is a crucial factor in sustaining the movements. From an agentic perspective, the study has shown that technology can facilitate the formation and alignment of intention, goals, and motivation for action, all of which are core features of human agency. Likewise, the same technology can facilitate the formation of courses of action at the cognitive and behavioral levels.
Contributions to Peace Psychology in Asia Technology and the Dynamics of Social Movements and Civic Engagement In studying the interface in use of technology in episodes of civic engagement and social movements, three processes common to the rise and decline of social movements (Klandermans, 1997) emerged, namely, (a) instilling consciousness, allowing interaction through discourses, and facilitating the construction of collective beliefs (construction and reconstruction of beliefs); (b) facilitating organization and mobilization (transformation discontent into action); and (c) amplifying urgency to sustain the act (sustaining participation) (see Fig. 6). These three processes make up the dynamics of social movements. The first process is the generation of collective action frames. Findings suggest that communications technology was essential in generating collective beliefs, identities, and efficacy. The second process deals with organization and mobilization. Again, technology was vital in facilitating and organizing mobilization efforts. The third process entails sustaining participation. Constant use of technology to provide information made people gather and stay until the proclamation of new leaders and the resolution of conflicts. This review highlights that technology was a crucial factor in the social construction of collective action frames. New technology provided innovative ways of generating collective action frames because it altered the way information
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Fig. 6 The interface subsumed in the dynamics of social movements
was disseminated (faster and easier) and opened new avenues for discussion and freedom of expression. The study also highlights that aside from facilitating organization and mobilization, the advent of new technologies paved the way for the creation of new forms of protest and propaganda. Lastly, the research shows that new technologies further amplified urgency to act and also altered the quality and quantity of participation. One striking discovery of this research was that the interface between human agency and technology gave rise to newer forms of agency (human agency × technology = new agency). In the same fashion, these new agencies when acted out with technology further generated new agencies. For example, when the calling agency makes use of technology to invite people to go to EDSA, people responded by joining in the street protest, which by itself is another form of agency. This process of generation and regeneration of agencies highlights the change in the dynamics of civic engagement as human agencies also change. At the same time, the interfacing also highlights the result of changing technology. The change in technology gave rise to newer forms of active nonviolent action. This indicates that as technology changes, newer forms of active nonviolent action will emerge. However, it is essential to analyze this process of change. First, the study showed that there are other factors aside from technology that influence change. Second, in relation to technology use, the analysis showed that the change is not found in the nature of civic engagement but in the form and intensity of civic engagement. The dynamics of a social movement – construction and reconstruction of beliefs, transformation of discontent into action, and sustenance of participation – remains constant. How these beliefs are constructed and reconstructed, how discontent is transformed into action, and how participation is sustained are the ones that change.
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In essence, the ingredients that make up social engagements remain intact. However, the forms and intensities will vary depending on (a) choice of technology that human agents make, and (b) when, where, and how human agents will use the technology.
Appendix A Question matrix for written accounts Guide questions
Focal variable
What were the seeds of the revolution? What were the forms of ANV? Who were the influential people? What communication technologies were mentioned in the episodes? What was the role of communication technologies during the episode?
Trigger/cause Kinds/types of ANV Context Kinds/types of technology Use of technology
Appendix B Interview Guide Interview questions
Focal variable human agency
What made you join mass movements? People Power I? People Power II? Could you narrate your group’s experience during the event? What was the group’s goal during the event?
Motivation, intention
What communication technologies were available and use during the episodes? How did you know about the event? What specific technologies did you use during the event? What do you think is the role of technology in ANV?
Acts of civic engagement Goals Focal variable Use of technology Identification of available technologies Identification of communication channels Identification of communication technologies used Perceptions on technology use in ANV
References Abbott, J. (2001).
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Arillo, C. (1986). Breakaway : The inside story of the four-day revolution in the Philippines, February 22–25, 1986. Metro Manila: CTA Research and Publishing. Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26. Downey, J., & Fenton, N. (2003). New media, counter publicity and the public sphere. New Media & Society, 15(2), 185–202. Downing, J. D. (2001). Radical media: Rebellious communication and social movements. California: Sage Publications, Inc. Eng, P. (1998). Online activists step up fight: Dissidence is no longer a rag-tag endeavour. Bangkok Post. Retrieved February 1, 2004 from http://www.bangkokpost.net/today/ 290498News19.html. Foss, D., & Larkin, R. (1986). Beyond revolution: A new theory of social movements. Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey Publishers, Inc. Klandermans, B. (1997). The social psychology of protest. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Lumicao-Santos, A., & Domingo-Robles, L. (1987). Power politics in the Philippines. Quezon City: Center for Social Research. Martin, B. (2001). Technology for nonviolent struggle. London: War Resisters’ International. Retrieved December 18, 2003 from http://www.gn.apc.org/warresisters/. Pool, I. (1984). Technologies of freedom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Persus Publishing. Simons, L. M. (1987). Worth dying for. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1997). Grounded theory in practice. California: Sage Publications. Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research. California: Sage Publications. Stuart-Santiago, A. (2000). Walang himala! Himagsikan sa edsa. Quezon City: Foundation for World Wide People Power, Inc. Tanner, E. (2001). Chilean conversations: Internet forum participants debate Augusto Pinochet’s detention. Journal of Communication, 51, 383–403. Tarrazona, H. M. (1989). After EDSA: Vol. I. Pasay: Hector M. Tarrazona. Willhelm, A. G. (2000). Democracy in the digital age: Challenges to political life in cyberspace. New York: Routledge. Zhou, S., & Gregory, S. (2003). Jiang Zemin’s personal crusade: Why the Chinese communist party leader moved against Falun Gong and how his anti- Falun Gong campaign has come to dominate his agenda. Retrieved December 18, 2004 from http://faluninfo.net/specialreports/ jiangspersonalcrusade. Zunes, S. (1999). The origins of people power in the Philippines. In E. Zunes, L. R. Kurtz, and S. B. Ascher (Eds.). Nonviolent social movements: A geographical perspective (pp. 129–157). Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, Inc.
Part IV
East Asia
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Forgiveness for Conflict Resolution in Asia: Its Compatibility with Justice and Social Control Ken-ichi Ohbuchi and Naomi Takada
Even after the end of the 20th century of warfare, our world is still beset by a number of serious conflicts. On the very day the 2008 Olympics “Peace Festival” began in Beijing, an armed international conflict broke out between Russia and the Republic of Georgia. These strife-filled conditions indicate a deep-rooted propensity in human societies toward conflicts.
Asia as a Conflict Area A number of Asian countries face potential conflicts with neighboring states. For instance, North Korea has been in a lengthy conflict with South Korea and Japan over the issues of nuclear disarmament and abduction of Japanese nationals, while the latter two countries have a serious dispute over the territorial rights of Takeshima (Dokuto) Island. There are several other territorial disputes among other adjoining countries in Asia. For example, armed clashes have occurred in the past between India and Pakistan over possession of Kashmir, and the tension between them still remains. Another example can be seen in Southeast Asia, where the military forces of Cambodia and Thailand have been facing each other over a border dispute involving the Preah Vihear Temple, though recently tensions have eased and the two sides have agreed to withdraw their forces. Furthermore, many Asian countries have internal conflicts stemming from various causes. Indonesia has been troubled by an independence movement in Aceh, while the Republic of the Philippines has to deal with Islamic separatist movements on Mindanao Island. In China, independence movements in Tibet and the Uighur regions have become increasingly active. These conflicts are generally difficult to resolve partly because parties in conflict are likely to have biased, self-serving cognitions of the conflict, such as victim bias (Baumeister, 1997) or justice bias (Morris & Gelfand, 2004). These biased interpretations motivate aggressive interactions, which in turn escalate the conflict (Pruitt & Kim, 2004). Looking into such situations, peace researchers and practitioners have recently become interested in the role of C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_12, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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forgiveness in conflict resolution (McCullough, 2008; Nadler, Malloy, & Fisher, 2008).
Korea–Japan Debate An especially interesting case related to forgiveness is a long-standing debate between Japan and Korea, which illustrates the difficulty of the process of forgiveness and reconciliation between conflicting parties. These two countries have mistrusted and felt resentment toward each other since Japan’s colonization and exploitation of Korea in the years leading up to the Pacific War, and for decades after the end of the war. In the postwar international military trials, a number of Japanese political and military leaders were found guilty of war crimes, such as inhumane treatment of civilians, and were subsequently executed. Furthermore, Japan paid the Korean government US $800 million as compensation according to the terms of the Treaty on Basic Relations, which was signed in 1965. However, issues of reparation and apology continue to stand between the countries. The Korean people have demanded reparations for individual victims and more explicit apologies from Japan for its past offences. Japan has counterargued that the reparation issue had already been resolved and the Japanese government has repeatedly made apologies to the Korean people. Korea has raised doubts about the sincerity of the apologies and alleged that conservative political groups in Japan have attempted to justify the Pacific War by praising the past military leaders and denying inhuman treatment of Korean people during the war (Edwards, 2005). Recent survey research indicates that today’s Korean people continue to hold negative attitudes toward Japan (Japan Research Center, 2007; Kagami, Moriya, Iwai, Park, & Sim, 2008). What may explain the absence of social forgiveness even after 60 years since the end of the Pacific War? This chapter addresses this query and other related issues about the complex nature of forgiveness. In particular, forgiveness is discussed as a social-psychological phenomenon closely intertwined with the notions of justice and social control.
Benefits and Risks/Costs of Forgiveness Forgiveness consists of psychological and behavioral components. The psychological component is “intra-individual prosocial changes toward a perceived transgressor” (McCullough, Pargament, & Thoresen, 2000), while the behavioral side is about “refrainment of punishment and of demand of reparation.” Some researchers maintain that both components are necessary for forgiveness, because forgiveness is a behavioral expression of positive internal changes toward a transgressor (Enright, Freedman, & Rique, 1998; McCullough et al., 2000). Other researchers define forgiveness only by its behavioral characteristics and distinguish different types of forgiveness according to the extent to which psychological components are involved
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(Exline & Baumeister, 2000; Ohbuchi & Takada, 2004). One type is “true forgiveness,” a forgiving behavior accompanied by internal forgiveness, while the other type is “hollow forgiveness,” a forgiving behavior without internal forgiveness. In this chapter, we attempt to review theories and research on determinants of forgiving behavior from the behavioral position. Research has demonstrated that forgiveness can generate personal and interpersonal benefits. Engagement in forgiving behavior increases the chances of constructive conflict resolution and repair of damaged social relationships (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991). Attribution studies of conflicts in close relationships have repeatedly indicated that forgiveness toward a partner is strongly determined by how one attributes his/her partner’s behaviors (Bradbury & Fincham, 1990). Those who are satisfied with marital life tend to attribute their partners’ mistakes and wrongdoings to external, unstable, and uncontrollable causes, which in turn leads to a higher likelihood of forgiving the partner. Forgiving responses positively affect the partner’s behaviors, decreasing his or her transgressions and enhancing his or her positive concerns for the relationship. In addition to these interpersonal benefits, those who forgive the offenders are likely to attain mental and physical well-being, even though the offender does not respond to the forgiveness (Exline & Baumeister, 2000). Enright and Baumeister (2000) have examined the effectiveness of their education program that helps incest survivors and abuse victims forgive their offenders (Al-Mabuk, Enright, & Cardis, 1995; Freedman & Enright, 1996). As compared with the control group, the victims who participated in the educational program reached significantly higher levels of forgiveness and significantly reduced their level of anxiety and depression. This was the case even in situations where the offenders were not capable of responding to forgiveness because of their death or incapacitation by disease. Although forgiveness contributes to personal well-being and the maintenance of relationships, some victims cannot forgive offenders. Exline and Baumeister (2000) discussed the reasons for low engagement in forgiveness. First, forgiveness means to give up collecting a debt that an offender owes to a victim. Second, forgiving an offender too easily may reduce the offender’s level of guilt (i.e., a sense of wrongdoing) and consequently might encourage the offender to repeat the transgression (Gold & Weiner, 2000). Third, the expression of forgiveness may well be interpreted by others as a sign of weakness, timidity, or stupidity because they did not “stand up” for their legitimate rights. Finally, forgiveness is often perceived as a violation of principles of justice if neither retribution nor reparation is performed. For these risks/costs, people may sometimes hesitate to forgive offenders even though they recognize that forgiveness has a variety of potential benefits. Returning to the Korea–Japan case, we see various possible reasons for nonforgiveness by Koreans. First, Korean governments continue to criticize the past offences of Japan perhaps because of concerns about a reemergence of militarism in Japan. Second, criticism may continue for political purposes, such as getting concessions from Japan over other matters or portraying a tough image vis-à-vis Japan to the Korean electorate.
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Forgiveness and Justice We now raise the question about whether forgiveness might be incompatible with justice. Does forgiveness, that is, the decision not to punish an offender, violate a principle of justice that regulates social interactions? Does a remission of reparation create an unfair relationship between victim and offender? Indeed, the apparent incompatibility of justice and forgiveness leads Exline and Baumeister (2000) to propose that if justice concerns are very salient, a person would be less likely to forgive.
Positive Relationships of Justice and Forgiveness The relationship between forgiveness and justice, however, seems more complex than merely a case of incompatibility. Contrary to this simplistic conception, there is research evidence indicating that those who are concerned with justice are more forgiving. An experimental study conducted by Karremans and Van Lange (2005, Study 3) indicated that their participants became forgiving after being experimentally subjected to the concept of justice. The authors provided three groups of Dutch students with a questionnaire including conflict scenarios. The questionnaire given to the first group was printed on a page with a light gray watermark image of Justitia, “the Ancient Roman symbol of justice,” on it. The questionnaire given to the second group had a watermark of a university logo, while the third group received a questionnaire without a watermark. The level of forgiveness of the students, measured by their responses to the conflict scenarios, indicated that those who were primed for a concept of justice were significantly more forgiving than the students of other two groups (Fig. 1). More recently, a study done by Strelan (2007) also suggests a positive relationship between justice and forgiveness. A personality variable reflecting individual differences in a concern for justice is a belief in a just world (BJW), that is, a belief that the world is just and fair. If justice and forgiveness are incompatible, it is predicted that those having strong BJW will be unforgiving to transgressors. However, the finding provided by Strelan using Australian students was not consistent with the prediction. He conceptually divided BJW into two types based on Dalbert’s theory (2002): the general BJW is a belief that people, in general, are fairly treated in the world, while the personal BJW is a belief that a particular person (respondent) is fairly treated in the world. He found that the personal BJW positively correlated with the trait of forgiveness (r = .25, p < .01), while the general BJW did not, suggesting that those who believe that they are fairly treated in the world are more forgiving toward others than those who do not believe so. Karremans and Van Lange emphasize that retributive justice is incompatible with forgiveness, while other kinds of justice that are not concerned with retribution or punishment are not incompatible with forgiveness. Research on procedural and distributive justice suggests that an important part of conceptions of justice includes
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Fig. 1 Effects of priming of justice on forgiveness (Karremans and Van Lange (2005, Study 3))
3.5
Forgiveness
3 2.5 2 1.5 1 Justitia
Logo
Blank
a concern for the welfare of others (e.g., Tyler, Boeckman, Smith, & Huo, 1997). The value theory of Schwartz (1992) also postulates the prosocial aspects of justice. Schwartz and Huismans (1995) demonstrated that justice and forgiveness are two values that can be arranged into the same domain of values serving the same motivational goal, namely, promoting the welfare of others, together with other values such as helpfulness, loyalty, and honesty. Strelam also focuses on the prosocial nature of justice, by postulating that individuals who believe that the world is just are motivated to see the world as stable, orderly, and logical and to believe in the positive traits of humanity. He assumes that these individuals trust people’s benevolence, and they can behave altruistically based on the belief that their prosocial actions would one day be reciprocated, even if they are victimized. In the analysis of motives of forgiveness, we found a similar motive (Takada & Ohbuchi, 2004). We labeled it as “tolerance,” meaning that we should not severely punish a transgressor because we all commit faults or mistakes. A just world does not have to be a world populated only by perfect individuals who never commit mistakes, but one in which imperfect individuals are interdependent and forgive each other. The belief that such a benevolent, just world exists may encourage forgiveness. However, there are questions on whether a concern for justice always encourages forgiveness. First, is the retributive justice concern more likely to be evoked than the prosocial justice concern when one is severely victimized? Second, how many people hold the benevolent BJW? If it is held by only a few people, the positive relationship between justice and forgiveness cannot be generalized. In order to answer these questions, future research should examine what factors activate prosocial motivations of justice and the benevolent BJW. In other words, we should explicate variables moderating the relationships between forgiveness and justice.
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Third-Party Effects: Conciliation and Retributive Justice Past research has primarily focused on the factors regarding the parties concerned (victim and offender). For example, a victim’s empathy and an offender’s apology are the topics that have been most often examined in forgiveness research. Researchers have been interested in how a victim empathizes with an offender and whether the offender makes an apology to the victim or not. These studies have dealt with the perceptions, judgments, and behaviors of participants directly involved in a conflict. However, we assume that responses by a third party to the conflict also influence victim forgiveness. Forgiving behavior is determined by anticipated benefits and costs, but it is also affected by how third-party persons (observers or audience) evaluate or value forgiveness. Previously in this chapter, we discussed the risk that forgiving individuals may be viewed by observers as weak and timid. In the southern area of America, for example, the risk may be particularly serious since a culture of honor is said to prevail (Nisbett & Cohen, 1996). Therefore, a victim may hesitate to forgive an offender for fear of being negatively viewed by third-party persons. In contrast, if third-party persons defend a victim by publicly recognizing the appropriateness of his or her behaviors, the victim’s concern for justice will be satisfied and the internal resistance to forgiveness will be reduced. In order to examine this hypothesis, we conducted a scenario study with Japanese students (Takada & Ohbuchi, 2007). Constructing four versions of harm scenarios by manipulating the levels of victim responsibility (responsible or not) and the types of third-party comments (criticism or defense), we asked the students, who took the role of victims, to read the scenarios and comments. The Japanese students’ responses to the scenarios indicated that the victims became forgiving when they were depicted as responsible for the harm more than when they were not, suggesting that the victim’s judgment of responsibility determines forgiveness toward the offender. Consistent with our hypothesis, the victim became more forgiving when the third party defended the victim rather than being critical. However, Fig. 2 indicates that the effect occurred only when the victim was not responsible for the harm. When the victim was responsible, in contrast, the victim was forgiving regardless of the responses of the third party. These findings suggest that if a third party recognizes the justifiability of the victim, the victim’s concern for social justice is satisfied, which in turn reduces the motivation for retribution and thus encourages forgiveness. A similar finding was obtained in a study by McLernon, Cairns, Hewstone, and Smith (2004). In the study focusing on the Northern Ireland conflict, they found that victims became forgiving when third parties sympathized with them or criticized offenders. Both our and Mclernon et al.’s studies suggest that third-party responses play an important role in the resolution of any dilemma between forgiveness and justice. Most societies have institutionalized third-party agencies for conflict resolution. There are also international agencies working for resolutions of international and interethnic conflicts. Needless to say, the effectiveness of intervention of these thirdparty agencies depends on how they encourage forgiveness between conflicting
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Fig. 2 Forgiveness as a function of third party’s mention of victim responsbility (Takada & Ohbuchi, 2007)
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participants. The research findings presented here suggest that it is crucial for the intervention to reduce the motivations for retribution by satisfying the participants’ concern for social justice.
Forgiveness and Social Control Another serious risk of forgiveness is to increase the likelihood of a repetition of an offense. If forgiveness does not reduce transgression or even increases it, forgiveness infringes on the principle of social control that people expect to manage social life and social relationships in an orderly way. Successful forgiveness is an attempt to exert social control by appealing to the morality of a transgressor. That is, it is expected that forgiveness evokes gratitude or guilt in a transgressor, which will inhibit his or her future transgressions. However, a transgressor sometimes responds to forgiveness in different ways. First, the transgressor might perceive that forgiveness is tacit approval of his or her transgression. In this case, the transgressor may not be motivated to suppress transgression because he or she does not have guilt (Leith & Baumeister, 1998). It is further possible that the transgressor is more likely to commit transgressions due to a feeling that the victim has no power of retribution (Deutsch, Epstein, Canavan, & Gumpert, 1967). Second, after being forgiven by a victim, a harm-doer sometimes feels uncomfortable. The harm-doer is likely to perceive his or her own deed as less serious than the victim sees this same deed (Zechmeister & Romero, 2002). If a harm-doer is forgiven by a victim when he or she does not think severe harm was inflicted on the victim, the harm-doer may feel that receiving forgiveness increased the perceived debt owed to the victim (Exline & Baumeister, 2000).
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Although it is theoretically possible that forgiveness causes the repetition of transgression, there is little empirical research that has attempted to examine this possibility. Recently, however, an interesting study was conducted by Wallace, Exline, and Baumeister (2008, Study 1), in which American students played a prisoner’s dilemma game with two other players. In round 1, each participant was required by the experimenter to compete against both other players, and he/she got a “great” pay as a reward. Then, each participant received comment cards from the two other players. The forgiving comment card message stated: “Ouch. OK, I forgive you for competing against me, but let’s cooperate so we can both get some money.” The unforgiving message stated: “What’s your problem?! You really screwed me. Remember––we’ll both get more money if we cooperate.” In round 2, each participant was again required by the experimenter to compete with either one of the other players. Figure 3 shows that participants repeated the exploitation of the victim who had not forgiven them, but did not exploit the victim who had forgiven them. 80 70 % of participants
Fig. 3 Repeated competitions against unforgiving and forgiving others (Wallace et al, 2008, Study 1)
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Wallace et al.’s (2008) findings that the expression of forgiveness generally serves to deter rather than invite repeat offenses suggest prosocial functions of forgiveness. However, it should be noted that there were still a few participants who repeated offenses against the forgiving victim (Fig. 3). What is the difference between those who repeat offenses and those who stop doing so? How does forgiveness suppress future offenses? When does it fail to do so? Although Wallace et al.’s study does not answer these questions, it made a substantial contribution to this research field by empirically demonstrating that forgiveness produced positive behavioral changes in harm-doers.
Group Conflicts and Forgiveness An approach to group conflicts and group forgiveness that social psychologists have generally taken is to construct and empirically test hypotheses concerning variables such as intergroup cognitions, affects, and behaviors. From this approach, a number
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of important findings and theories have emerged. However, other social scientists have raised the criticism that most social psychological research does not deal with real group conflicts (Lee, McCauley, Moghaddam, & Worchel, 2004). They cast doubt on the validity of findings obtained from social psychological research, which is typically conducted with university students in laboratory settings apart from real conflict situations. Some social psychologists are also concerned that the methodology may not be able to replicate the essential aspects of group conflict and group forgiveness as seen in cases of true conflict. Recently, however, social psychological research directly targeting participants in real group conflicts has increased. These researches examined the following topics: the effects of activities of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa on reconciliation between ethnic groups that had been hostile toward each other during the Apartheid Era (Stein et al., 2008); the reconciliation processes between parties in the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland (Tam et al., 2008); forgiveness toward other ethnic groups after the Bosnia and Herzegovina Conflict (Cehajic, Brown, & Castano, 2008); and the psychological factors of forgiveness relating to political reconciliation in Chile between participants from the right and the left of the political spectrum (Manzi & Gonzalez, 2007). One notes the dearth of Asian-based research, however.
Forgiveness in Interpersonal Conflicts and Group Conflicts Are there differences in forgiveness between interpersonal and intergroup conflicts? A widely recognized factor encouraging a victim’s forgiveness is a harm-doer’s apology. There is an ample body of research indicating the positive effects of apology in interpersonal conflicts (e.g., Ohbuchi, Kameda, & Agarie, 1989; Takaku, 2000). On the other hand, research dealing with group conflicts has provided inconsistent findings. Giving Japanese and American students scenarios depicting either interpersonal or intergroup conflicts, we asked them to rate how likely a victim was to forgive a harm-doer (Ohbuchi, Atsumi, & Takaku, 2008). When the harm-doer made apologies, as compared with when justification was made, the Japanese participants rated that the victim would be more likely to forgive the harm-doer in both interpersonal and group conflicts, while the American participants rated that the victim would be less likely to forgive the harm-doer in the group conflicts than in interpersonal conflicts. However, we found that both Japanese and Americans were more satisfied with receiving apologies from the harm-doer in both interpersonal and intergroup conflicts. Philpot and Hornsey (2008) found that apology did not encourage a victim’s forgiveness in intergroup situations. Although the presence of apology helped promote perceptions that an out-group was remorseful, and although participants were more satisfied with an apology than with no apology as our study indicated, the presence of the apology failed to promote forgiveness for the offending group. The authors
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concluded that (1) groups comprise numerous autonomous agents capable of acting in a variety of ways, so victims are uncertain whether the out-group will reoffend in the future or not and (2) group apologies are seen as being made public due to pressure from within and outside the group, so victims are suspicious of the motives involved in group apology. The Korea–Japan case underscores the difficulties in forgiving offenders in real group conflicts. Koreans still have doubts whether the Japanese feel sincere remorse for past offences, and they point to Japanese political leaders’ repeated attempts to justify the Pacific War as one example of a lack of sincerity. Ferguson et al. (2007) conducted an empirical study to examine the effects of apology in a real group conflict situation. In 2002, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) expressed an apology for the hundreds of people victimized during the Northern Ireland Conflict. By content analyzing media reports, Ferguson et al. found that third-party nations, such as the USA, had positive reactions to the apology. However, one directly concerned party, Great Britain, was not so positive, and the other concerned party, Protestants in Northern Ireland who were most seriously victimized by its violence, had the most negative reaction. Several academic investigations have been conducted to examine the effectiveness of TRC, which was founded to resolve race antagonism in South Africa (Chapman, 2007; Stein et al., 2008). In the content analysis of interviews with people concerned, Chapman (2007) found that a majority of victims did not express forgiveness toward offenders, so he negatively rated the effectiveness of TRC on the reconciliation process. These studies about real group conflicts underline the difficulties of encouraging victims’ forgiveness in group conflict situations.
Social Psychological Variables of Intergroup Forgiveness Reduction of cognitive biases and empathy. Several teams of social psychologists have challenged the research targeting participants involved in real group conflicts. Of particular note is a series of studies conducted by Hewstone and his colleagues. The research participants were Catholics and Protestants who had been involved in severe sectarian conflicts for a long time in Northern Ireland (e.g., Hewstone et al., 2004; Hewstone, Cairns, Voci, Hamberger, & Niens, 2006). The conflict had been officially settled, and a peace program for reconciliation between the two groups had begun. However, suspicion and hostility between the two sides have continued, and some extremist separatist groups are still active. Hewstone et al. (2006) selected samples from both groups and, using these focus groups, attempted to explore what determines forgiveness toward an out-group. Reviewing these research findings, Tam et al. (2008) concluded that reduction of anger, infra-humanization, empathy, and reduction of intergroup cognitive biases at both implicit and explicit levels encourage forgiveness toward an out-group. Another notable study on forgiveness in real intergroup conflicts was conducted by Cehajic et al. (2008), whose research field was the former Yugoslavia. Within this
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multinational country, separatist movements became active after the Soviet Union broken down, and then, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Croatia attained the status of independent nations one after another. In 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina gained its independence, but the Serbian and the Bosnian groups within it continued to confront each other. The conflict finally developed into a frightful civil war involving a great number of citizens. Although a peace agreement was reached through the mediation of the USA in 1995, deeply ingrained distrust still remains between the ethnic groups. In a questionnaire study with a sample of Bosnian students living in Sarajevo, Cehajic et al. attempted to measure their perception of and attitude toward Serbs. They found that more forgiveness was seen in Bosnian students who had a higher level of trust and empathy with the Serbs and who perceived the Serbs as being a heterogeneous out-group that is, an out-group consisting of different kinds of people, and not simply a homogeneous out-group. These studies conducted by Hewstone et al. and by Cehajic et al., although using different samples, revealed the same cognitive and affective variables of forgiveness in intergroup conflicts: that is, a reduction of intergroup cognitive biases (infrahumanization, in-group favoritism, and out-group homogeneity) and the activation of empathy toward the out-group. Intergroup contact. These studies likewise focus on positive intergroup contact as an antecedent of forgiveness. The researchers assumed that the above cognitive and affective variables would mediate the effects of intergroup contact on forgiveness. Tam et al. (2008) obtained empirical support for their theoretical model that intergroup contact reduces intergroup biases and enhances empathy, which in turn encourages forgiveness toward an out-group (Fig. 4). Fig. 4 Path model intergroup forgiveness (reproduced from Tam et al. (2008) with permission from Blackwell)
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The idea of intergroup contact is not a new one. We can find it in a seminal book on prejudice written by Allport in 1954. Since then, a number of research and social work projects have demonstrated that the quality of contact drastically changes intergroup relationships (Brown & Hewston, 2005; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006). In a famous field experiment using teenage boys, “The robbers cave experiment,” Sherif, Harvey, White, Hood, and Sherif (1988) showed that the boys’ negative attitudes and
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hostility against an out-group were reduced after their participation in collaborative activities with the out-group. The studies by Hewstone et al. and Cehajic et al. suggest that this may occur even in real group conflicts, thereby offering a potential model regarding the psychological mechanisms of contact. Returning to the protracted Korea–Japan conflict, the World Cup Soccer tournament in 2002, which was jointly held by South Korea and Japan, provides an interesting example of the effects of collaborative activities. As we stated above, there has been mutual mistrust and hostility between these countries for decades. The World Cup 2002 might have provided the people of the two countries with an opportunity to experience collaboration and a positive contact with each other. In order to examine its social psychological effects, Kamise and Hagiwara (2003) conducted a panel study using Japanese students. The study revealed that more than 70% of the respondents claimed that the relationship between Korea and Japan had positively changed after the sporting event, though the relationship between them was not very friendly even after the sports event. Although it did not directly deal with forgiveness, this study suggests that intergroup collaboration reduced real intergroup conflicts. Recategorization. A related cognitive variable was examined in an intriguing research by Branscombe, Slugoski, and Kappen (2004) and Wohl and Branscombe (2005). They attempted to find out why contemporary members of a historically victimized group still harbor negative emotional and psychological responses toward contemporary members of the original perpetrator group. Branscombe et al. argue that one important reason is that the victimized group members often associate the ancestors who committed the offense with contemporary members of the perpetrator group by common category membership (i.e., the same out-group). In order to change such an antagonistic categorization, Wohl and Branscombe (2005) exposed a group of Jewish students to the human identity salience condition where the Holocaust was described as an event in which humans behaved aggressively toward other humans. For the other Jewish students in the social identity condition, the Holocaust was described as an event in which Germans behaved aggressively toward Jews. The results showed that the inclusive human categorization increased the Jewish students’ forgiveness toward contemporary Germans for the Holocaust. This increase in forgiveness can be explained by “re-categorization,” a cognitive strategy described by Fiske (1998), which obscures intergroup boundaries by making an inclusive superordinate group salient. Fiske theoretically proposed that recategorization can reduce prejudices and hostility between groups, and Wohl and Brancombe empirically demonstrated a possibility that it effectively works in real intergroup conflicts. In their experimental study, recategorization was induced by exposing participants to a message that increased category inclusiveness. In real situations, parents, teachers, or mass media can provide children with these kinds of messages. As this chapter was being written, the Olympic Games were taking place in Beijing. While watching events from stadium seats or on TV, people from around the world became wildly excited by the performances of athletes from their national
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teams. Contrary to the principles/premises of the recategorization theory, these international competitions instead seem to make people’s social identities and group boundaries salient, thereby increasing prejudices and hostility against other ethnic groups. However, international sports matches may provide both athletes and their compatriot audience with opportunities to interact with members of other ethnic groups. In fact, an experimental study by Gaertner, Rust, Dovidio, Bachman, and Anastasio (1994) showed that intergroup contacts induce recategorization. Reviewing the research above that demonstrates that the intergroup contact increases forgiveness, we discussed a set of mediating variables of its effects. We can add a concept of recategorization to the set.
Conclusions Asia currently has a number of serious conflicts between and within its countries. For peaceful resolutions to the conflicts, forgiveness between rival groups is necessary. Although forgiveness may benefit participants in conflict and improve intergroup relationships with others in various ways, participants often hesitate to engage in forgiveness because of its potential costs and risks. Research on real intergroup conflicts indicates that attaining a state of forgiveness is very problematic (Cehajic et al., 2008; Hewstone et al., 2004). However, the research also has found a set of social psychological variables that promote forgiveness between conflicting groups. They are the reduction of intergroup cognitive biases (infra-humanization, in-group favoritism, and out-group homogeneity) and the activation of empathy toward an out-group. A situational factor that researchers regard as affecting these variables is intergroup contact, which is a traditional idea in social psychology to reduce intergroup prejudice and hostility. A potential problem with forgiveness is the possibility that it may contradict principles of justice. However, recent research has indicated that it is not always the case, since an activated concern for justice sometimes encourages forgiveness (Karremans & Van Lange, 2005; Strelan, 2007). These researchers instead suggest that justice is a multifaceted concept, involving social values that are compatible with forgiveness. Further, we proposed that a third party can help participants resolve any incompatibility between forgiveness and justice (Takada & Ohbuchi, 2007). Another potential problem is the risk that forgiveness may result in a repetition of transgression. Once again, recent research has given us a different, more positive view of the issue, suggesting that a victim’s forgiveness evokes guilt in the transgressor, which in turn encourages his or her positive behavior changes (Wallace et al., 2008). Future research must clarify in greater detail the relationships between forgiveness and aspects of justice and identify the conditions by which forgiveness improves a transgressor’s behaviors.
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References Al-Mabuk, R. H., Enright, R. D., & Cardis, P. A. (1995). Forgiveness education with parentally love-deprived late adolescents. Journal of Moral Education, 24, 427–444. Baumeister, R. F. (1997). Evil: Inside human violence and cruelty. New York: W. H. Freeman. Bradbury, T. N., & Fincham, F. D. (1990). Attributions in marriage: Review and critique. Psychological Bulletin, 107, 3–33. Branscombe, N. R., Slugoski, B., & Kappen, D. M. (2004). Interpreting the ingroup’s negative actions toward another group: Emotional reactions to appraised harm. In L. Z. Tiedens & C. W. Leach (Eds.), The social life of emotions (pp. 314–335). New York: Cambridge University Press. Brown, R., & Hewston, M. (2005). An integrative theory of intergroup contact. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology ( Vol. 37, pp. 255–343). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Cehajic, S., Brown, R., & Castano, E. (2008). Forgive and forget? Antecedents and consequences of intergroup forgiveness in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Political Psychology, 29, 351–367. Chapman, A. R. (2007). Truth commissions and intergroup forgiveness: The case of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 13, 51–69. Deutsch, M., Epstein, Y., Canavan, D., & Gumpert, P. (1967). Strategies of inducing cooperation: An experimental study. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 11, 345–360. Edwards, J. A. (2005). Community-focused apologia in international affairs: Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama’s apology. Howard Journal of Communications, 16, 317–336. Enright, R. D., Freedman, S., & Rique, J. (1998). The psychology of interpersonal forgiveness. In R. E. Enright, & J. North (Eds.), Exploring Forgiveness (pp. 46–62). Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press. Exline, J. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Expressing Forgiveness and Repentance: Benefits and Barriers. . In M. E. McCullough, K. I. Pargament, & C. E. Thoresen (Eds.), Forgiveness: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 133–155). New York: Guilford Press. Ferguson, N., Binks, E., Roe, M. D., Brown, J. N., Adams, T., Cruise, S. M., et al. (2007). The IRA Apology of 2002 and forgiveness in Northern Ireland’s troubles: A cross-national study of printed media. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 13, 93–113. Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. In D. T. Gulbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.). The handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, 4th ed, pp. 357–411). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Freedman, S. R., & Enright, R. D. (1996). Forgiveness as an intervention with incest survivors. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 983–992. Gaertner, S. L., Rust, M. C, Dovidio, J. F., Bachman, B. A., & Anastasio, P. A. (1994). The contact hypothesis: The role of a common ingroup identity on reducing intergroup bias. Small Groups Research, 25, 224–249. Gold, J. G. & Weiner, B. (2000). Remorse, confession, group identity, and expectances about repeating a transgression. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 22, 291–300. Hewstone, M., Cairns, E., Voci, A., Crisp, R. J., Niens, U., & Craig, J. (2004). Intergroup contact in a divided society: Challenging segregation in Northern Ireland. In D. Abrams, J. M. Marques, & M. A. Hogg (Eds.), The social psychology of inclusion and exclusion (pp. 265–291). New York: Psychology Press. Hewstone, M., Cairns, E., Voci, A., Hamberger, J., & Niens, U. (2006). Intergroup contact, forgiveness, and experience of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Journal of Social Issues, 62, 99–120. Japan Research Center. (2007). A cross-cultural survey research on Japan-Korea relations [Japanese]. http://www.nrc.co.jp/report/pdf/070517.pdf. Kagami, T., Moriya, T., Iwai, A., Park, J., & Sim, J. (2008). How South Korean perceptions of Japanese are formed: An analysis based on the nine-in-one drawing method [Japanese]. Intercultural Education, 28, 60–73.
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Toward Reconciliation of Historical Conflict Between Japan and China: Design Science for Peace in Asia Tomohide Atsumi and Koichi Suwa
One way to understand the dynamics of peace in Asia is to examine what groups people identify themselves with and how they perceive the relationship between the group’s past and the present. Empirical research has found that social representations of history are powerful lenses through which people perceive their past and present. It has also revealed that these lenses ground people’s identity with their nations as well as ethnic groups (Liu & Hilton, 2005; Liu, Lawrence, Ward, & Abraham, 2002; see Liu & Atsumi, 2008 for theoretical review). Previous studies on social representations, however, have been mostly epistemic. In other words, they find the lens and grind it, but they do not twist it and focus it on the real world. Because our chapter discusses an actual conflict in Asia (i.e., historical conflict between Japan and China), we take into account how we can twist and focus the lens.
Toward Narrative-Design Science Of course, it is extremely challenging for us to face real-world controversial issues. However, we believe that it is time for social psychology to contribute to the real world. Atsumi (2007) advocated this practical perspective. He invited social psychologists to open their eyes to the real world. For instance, there are many disasters in Asia every year. There were devastating earthquakes in Iran in 2003, in the Indian Ocean in 2004 with the unprecedented Tsunami hitting many countries, in Pakistan in 2005, and in Sichuan, China, in 2008 as well as floods in Myanmar in 2008. As another example, there has been the unresolved issue of political tension across the Taiwanese strait. A final example of real-world issues, which is directly related to this chapter, is the repetitive series of protest movements against countries such as Japan for historical and economic reasons. Because social psychologists are specialists of human relations, there must be many human or humanitarian issues to which we could contribute. Atsumi (2007) proposed a framework for such real-world research. He classified sciences into four categories (Table 1), allowing the risk that any classification could invite false dichotomies and excessively polarized thinking. First, sciences are divided into nomothetic and narrative science. Nomothetic science includes natural C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_13, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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Table 1 Categorization of science
Nomothetic science
Epistemic science
Design science
Physics/chemistry
Engineering
Humanities/social science
Political science
Narrative science Social psychology
Notes: A vertical arrow indicates “First Wing,” while a horizontal arrow “Second Wing.” The first wing leads social psychology from narrative-epistemic science to nomothetic-epistemic science; while the second wing leads it from narrative-epistemic to narrative-design science.
sciences such as physics and chemistry. It attempts to find universal laws by testing hypotheses by the criterion of true or false. Narrative science, in contrast, focuses on characters, plots, and the flow of a narrative and its interpretation by the criterion of verisimilar or non-verisimilar. The humanities and social sciences such as political science tend to fall under the narrative-science category. In the sense that social psychology is about everyday life and does not follow a universal law as things in physics do, but is rather culturally and historically embedded in a context, it can be studied by the narrative-science lens. Another criterion is to divide sciences into epistemic and design sciences. Epistemic science is interested in the question, “What is it?” It first describes research objects as they are, explains them, controls them, and predicts them. Once the nature of a particular phenomenon is revealed, the epistemic scientists stop their investigation. Design science, on the other hand, focuses on the question, “What do you want to do?” It attempts to formulate a future plan by considering how it can be and how it should be. In other words, it designs a reality, practices it, and evaluates it. Although some research, especially classical action research in group dynamics, showed deep interest in the design side, most of the current social psychological research remains in the realm of epistemic science. In sum, social psychology can be headed in two directions. One is the current mainstream movement toward nomothetic-epistemic science, while the other is a potential movement toward narrative-design science. It has been clear so far that we should join the latter movement when we pursue a practical approach to peace in Asia because we should not be satisfied with understanding the reality or even its scientific laws. We should instead try to change the real world full of conflicts into a peaceful world by producing persuasive discourse toward peace. This chapter uses a narrative-design science lens to understand Japanese social representations of the history of Japan–China relations.
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Historical Conflict Between Japan and China Since the 20th Century There is a paucity of psychological literature on collective remembering by Asians about East Asia. For example, PsycInfo finds over 1,000 entries indexed to the Holocaust, but none to the Nanjing Massacre. However, Liu, and Atsumi (2008) have looked into how Asia remembers its past and provide a summary of the discourse on historical conflict between Japan and China since the last century. Liu and Atsumi (2008) studied the 2005 protests and riots in China against Japanese interests. The trigger was the recertification of a textbook published by the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform in 2001 that made virtually no mention of Japanese war crimes. From a Japanese perspective, the fury of Chinese response appeared disproportionate to a text that had already been officially denounced by the Japan Teachers Union and adopted by only 18 among Japan’s 11,000+ junior high schools as of April 2004. The lack of swift official Chinese action against the rioting may have signaled tacit condoning of antiJapanese sentiments. Current history-related conflict between Japan and China may serve ruling party interests in both countries (Liu & Atsumi, 2008). For the ruling faction of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan, it provides a way of placating the right wing by demonstrating symbolic strength and fidelity while instituting far-reaching economic reforms that may hurt its traditional power base. For China, it provides a pressure release valve by unifying and directing elite and popular concerns against an external foe. These elite agendas play on genuine fears among ordinary Japanese of a resurgent China and its historical grievances and genuine anger among ordinary Chinese at the suffering inflicted on them in the past by Japan, and China’s perceived lack of Japanese contrition.
History in Japan Revisited Liu and Atsumi (2008) provided us with a general psychological picture of relations between Japan and China by using historical and political documents. For their study, they used a telescopic lens. As a follow-up to that study, we twist the lens and focus on everyday conversations especially among young Japanese generations. We see a different picture. Hence, let us revisit Japan with this lens that focuses on everyday conversations. We conducted quantitative research using nationwide newspapers as an archival data source about historical representations (Atsumi, Yamori, & Takano, 2004). We counted the words that represented one of the most prominent issues of historical conflict between China and Japan: The Nanjing Incident/Nanjing Massacre. It was indicated that the historical issue (i.e., Nanjing Massacre) was frequently featured in 1994 and later, but was not discussed much before this year. We counted the term “Problem/Cognition of History” in addition to the terms “The Nanjing Incident/The
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Nanjing Massacre” in newspaper articles. Figure 1 shows the number of each incident recorded in the Yomiuri Shimbun from the calendar year 1987 to the calendar year 2006, while Fig. 2 shows the equivalent figures for the Asahi Shimbun.1 Hence, we can conclude that historical conflict between Japan and China has been an important social issue in Japanese society especially since the 1990s. Survey data also indicate that Japanese people are sensitive to the problem of historical conflict (Asahi-Shimbun, 2006). For example, more than half the number of people in a national sample answered that Japanese had not sufficiently apologized and made reparation to the peoples and nations it invaded and/or colonized. However, another national survey in Japan that has been repeated every 5 years since 1973 indicates general but more basic trends among Japanese people (The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, 2004). The results obtained in the 2003 survey showed that people tend to lose their national identity (i.e., confidence 1 We chose two major nationwide newspapers in Japan; one of which is the Yomiuri Shimbun, which has around 10 million circulations and the right-of-center opinion and the other is Asahi Shimbun, which has around 8 million circulations and the left-of-center opinion. Both of these papers are quality papers and have a strong influence on Japanese public opinion.
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of being Japanese) year by year, and the score is lower among the younger generation. It also reveals that people have become less likely to be involved in political movements compared to earlier surveys. In summary, these data suggest that the lens Japanese people use has been modified over time. Historical conflicts between China and Japan have been featured by mass media especially since the 1990s in Japan. However, younger generation Japanese seem to be losing their national identity and interest in political movements. Because a lens for social representations of history combines identities and continuity between the past and the present, we now address the following questions: Have young Japanese people lost their national identity? How about their identities with Asia and the world? Do young Japanese people feel any continuity between the past and current life? Are they likely to be political anyway?
Discontinuity Between Japan and Asia Atsumi et al. (2004) conducted a questionnaire survey including the collective selfesteem scale of Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) and its modification by Liu et al.
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Fig. 3 Identity scores of Japanese students
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(2002). The participants were 119 students at Osaka University composed of 45 males and 68 females. Three scales of identity were included: identity with Japan, Asia, and universal identity. Figure 3 shows the results of the survey. Here, the universal identity indicated that Japanese people identify with their own nation and with the world but not with the Asian region. We therefore concluded that there is discontinuity between Japan and Asia among Japanese young people’s social identity.
Discontinuity Between the Past and Present The same survey asked Japanese students to indicate (a) words associated with history, (b) the most important events in Japanese history, and (c) the most influential figures in Japanese history. All of these questions were open ended, and three answers were required for each question. For question (a), 9.2% of the students answered the “past.” However, the majority (28.4%) said history was associated with school subjects, for example, “Japanese History,” “World History,” “Social Studies,” “National Center Test for University,” and “Study of memorization.” One student wrote that “I am sorry, but I am not good at history” (i.e., poor performance in history class at school). As for question (b), the top three important events were World War II (1945) chosen by 37.8%, the Meiji Modernization (1868) by 20.2%, and the opening of Japan (1854) by 16.0%. All of these events took place in the 19th century, except for World War II. As for question (c), the top three most important figures were Nobunaga Oda (1534–1582) chosen by 9%, Ieyasu Tokugawa (1542–1616) by 9%, and Ryoma Sakamoto (1835–1867) by 8%. All of these persons were Samurais, Japanese warriors, before the modernization in
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1868.2 Only three students (2.5%) out of 119 selected the Prime Minister (in 2004) Junichiro Koizumi, while none indicated Emperor Hirohito, who ruled Japan in its critical transition from the modernization of Meiji to the more aggressive externally directed policies of the first 20 years of Showa era. Although this is an episodic example, we found that young students did not correctly translate the Sino-Japanese War into a contextual precursor of World War II. World War II, especially Pacific War, was historically originated by Japan’s invasion and colonization of northern China in the early 20th century. Japanese students saw this Sino-Japanese War as a part of World War II rather than an antecedent of the Pacific War. It should be noted that our survey participants were highly educated individuals in Japanese society. They had passed a competitive entrance examination and obtained high achievements in academic courses that included history in their list of school subjects. Our results point to a discontinuity between the past and the present marked by an ignorance of the first 20 years of Showa era among the Japanese younger generation.
Apolitical Representations We conducted another survey in June 2007, covering 122 participants, all of whom were students of Osaka University and another private university in Kyoto. The participants were asked about the importance and evaluation of historical events and people, and how these relate to present-day issues. Concretely, we showed the participants a list of historical events (40 items) and a list of historical figures (40 items). Each of the items was evaluated in terms of its historical value (extremely negative to extremely positive) and importance (not at all important to extremely important) on a seven-point scale. Analyses showed that the top three important events were “Global Warming,” “Abolition of Slavery,” and “World War II” and that the top three important figures were “Jesus Christ,” “Mother Theresa,” and “Buddha”. In addition, the full lists of events and people indicated that universal or Western historical events and nonpolitical figures dominated the top half of the list. By contrast, historical events in Asia (e.g., Sino-Japanese War) as well as Asian political figures (e.g., Deng Xiaoping) were at the bottom of the lists. These results again supported the conclusion that members of the Japanese younger generation exhibit a discontinuity between Japan and Asia and are interested in global issues. Findings also indicated that they do not recognize the importance of political figures. Hence, it can be concluded that educated Japanese young people are apolitical. 2 Nobunaga Oda is one of the most influential feudatories in the 16th century in Japan and Ieyasu Tokugawa is the founder of the feudal government from the 17th to the 19th century. Ryoma Sakamoto was one of the central figures of the Meiji Restoration and he became a nationwide hero after his death, although he did not have any strong political power in his lifetime.
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“Naïve Universalism” According to our student surveys, Japanese students remain indifferent to Asia, history as the past, and political issues. However, these results were obtained by responses to simple questions. To validate our quantitative findings, we conducted a qualitative research about how Japanese understand Japanese history. We observed discussions of three groups; two groups consisted of young people, Osaka University students, and the other of older people.3 Each group discussion lasted for one and a half hours. The sessions for university students were implemented in Osaka University, and the other session took place in the urban area of Suita city, where Osaka University is based. Part of our data analysis compared the university groups with the older group. Each discussion consisted of three sessions. In the first session, members of the group were required to talk about Japanese history, based on the condition that they were supposed to help high school students create stories about Japanese history in the 20th century. During the second session, they discussed the same issue under different conditions, namely, that they were supposed to tell a story about Japanese 20th-century history to a Chinese friend in order to make him/her understand Japanese history well. During the final session, the condition was that they were supposed to tell the story of Japanese 20th-century history to a Chinese delegation in order to improve the critical situation between Japan and China. Each session took 30 minutes, and all the conversations were recorded by electric recorders and transcribed. Three features emerged in the results. First, the periods of silence were longer in the case of the students than those in the case of older people. Secondly, compared to older people, students used terms showing reservation, such as “may” and “perhaps,” and showed hesitation via the use of the word “well . . .” more frequently in their conversations. The third feature was common to the three groups; namely, that in all cases, they were unable to reach any conclusions. These narratives were analyzed from three points of view. First, the first sentences of their narratives were analyzed. The first sentence would explain their pure ideas concerning the conditions that we gave them in the session. Secondly, we focused on the final topic of their narrative in each session. The last topic may be the provisional conclusion to the condition. Thirdly, we interpreted the main topic of their narrative. The main topic, the issue that was discussed for the longest period, shows the things or events that they considered most important.
Results of the Session of “To Help High School Students” In the first sentence, young people said, “How difficult!” and apparently felt embarrassed with the condition. In contrast, older people seemed prepared for 3 In the elder group, there are 5 members and 2 were born in 1920s, another 2 were born in 1920s and the other one was in 1950s.
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the discussion. During the final topic, young people discussed fashion, especially clothes, and someone said, “It is not history!” This shows that they could not focus on history. In contrast, older people discussed the status quo of education in Japan, because they were unaware of what high school students knew about 20th-century events, especially World War II. Young people mainly discussed fashions all through the 20th century, rather than history. Elderly people mainly talked about their own experiences during World War II.
Results of the Session of “Talking to Chinese Friend” Under this condition, they were supposed to pretend that they had to talk to an individual who came from China, but who was also a friend. They assumed that they were in an informal or/and intimate situation. The first sentence was the same with both the young and elderly groups. They talked about their own familiarities with China. Young people discussed contemporary Japanese society as the final topic, whereas the older people talked about the Chinese mentality. As the main topic, young people discussed Japanese reactions to social problems. In contrast, elderly people discussed two topics, one being a positive issue, namely, the need to create a “real relationship” between Japanese and Chinese citizens, and the other one a negative issue, namely, the fact that although Chinese people are protesting against Japanese attitudes to history, both groups suffered from the war.
Result of the Session of “Talking to the Chinese Delegation” Under this condition, participants were supposed to pretend that they had to talk to a person who came from China as part of an official delegation. Therefore, they assumed a more formal setting than in the other sessions. In the first sentence, young people said, “I don’t know why the anti-Japanese movement suddenly happened in China.” In contrast, older people said, “As in the former case, first of all, I think we should apologize to them.” The final topic was “Why do the Chinese blame Japan for trying to become a permanent member of the Security Council in the United Nations?” The results show that Japanese people, especially young people, did not discuss history itself, even in the conditions requiring them to be in a situation where they are required to consider history. The young students lack opportunities or habits to discuss Japanese history, especially modern history. However, both shared a common aspect of lacking an underlying framework with which to relate Japanese history to Chinese people. These findings suggest that Japanese people do know something of Japan’s history with China, through official education among young generations and through personal experiences among older generations. However, Japanese, especially the young generation, do not have any active interest in communicating their history to Chinese people in present time and do not have any master narratives to connect
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their knowledge of history and current life. Instead, the younger generation is more interested in contemporary or trivial issues (e.g., fashion) than in political ones. The quantitative survey and qualitative discussion findings are consistent with each other. Namely, Japanese young people feel discontinuity between Japan and Asia as well as between the past and the present. They are also apolitical. In other words, they have a lens that leads them to be interested in current universal issues without connecting them to historical representations. We call this tendency “Naive Universalism” – Japanese identify with the universal world without connecting the human community with their own nation or region in a concrete historical context.
Narrative-Design Science Toward Peace in Asia If this were a study of epistemic science, the chapter would be over. However, we would like to pursue design science, especially because the volume is about peace in Asia. Our question here is how we should deal with Japanese Naive Universalism for peace in Asia. Note that we have examined survey and qualitative data so far, but it has been done from the perspective of narrative science. This means that we did not attempt to prove something, but we illustrated our conception about Naive Universalism with data. In other words, we now have produced a discourse for further discussion. Hence, even if an empirical scientist criticizes that the participants of the survey were not randomly sampled or that the number of focus groups was not enough for statistical inferences, the criticism does not hit the point. Surely, the sample was biased and the number of focus groups was small, but it is enough to add some discourses to the pile of previous discussions about reconciliation between Japan and China from the view of narrative-design science. Our discussion does not attempt to take the place of past findings, but instead we aim to make the discussion richer than before. We see two possible ways to use Japanese Naive Universalism for peace in Asia. First, since it is naive, we should sophisticate and nuance it to create a deeper and more sincere understanding about Japan and China’s relationship. This could be done through education and media, but it is difficult to change the dominant Japanese educational system and media influence. However, grassroots initiatives among Japanese and Chinese citizens may facilitate this social change in education and media. As for peace in Asia, this Japanese–Chinese interaction may evolve into a genuine apology and eventual forgiveness between the two countries. Second, we could radically accept the Naive Universalism among young Japanese and utilize it directly for the peace. As described at the start of this chapter, Asia is frequently hit by natural disasters. For example, when people in Sichuan, China, suffered from the 5.12 earthquake in 2008, many Japanese people showed their interest in helping the Sichuan victims and survivors, and reportedly Chinese media appreciated the Japanese International Relief Team when they prayed for the victims. In such a humanitarian phase of the disaster, it is relatively easy to help each other, even with a historical conflict. Since Japanese people have Naive
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Universalism, they are interested in such a universal event with or without knowledge about historical conflict between Japan and China. Studies introduced in this chapter, along with previous research, have provided us with a new lens through which people deal with historical conflicts between Japan and China. It is the turn of narrative-design scientists to twist and focus the lens toward peace in Asia. Acknowledgments An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the 7th Conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, July, 2007. We gratefully acknowledge Dr. James Liu for his assistance in checking the manuscript in English, a second language of the authors, and for his fruitful suggestions on the earlier version of this chapter. All authors participated in the data collection and analyses. The first and second authors coordinated each piece of results and led discussions among all authors. The first author combined the whole sets of analyses and wrote the draft with the second author who was in charge especially for the empirical data. Finally, this work was partially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B); No.19730503 for the second author).
References Asahi Shimbun. (2006). Responsibility for the war and commemoration. (Sensou Sekinin to Tsuito). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Sha. (In Japanese). Atsumi, T. (2007). Aviation with fraternal twin wings over the Asian context: Using nomothetic epistemic and narrative design paradigms in social psychology. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 32–40. Atsumi, T., Yamori, K., & Takano, N. (2004). Group dynamics in the collective remembering of historical events: Toward collaborative remembering. Presented at a small groups meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology on “Collective remembering, collective emotions and shared representations of history: Functions and dynamics”, Aix-en-Provence, France, July 16–19. Liu, J. H., & Atsumi, T. (2008). Historical conflict and resolution between Japan and China: Developing and applying a narrative theory of history and identity. In T. Sugiman, K. J. Gergen, W. Wagner, & Y. Yamada, (Eds.) Meaning in Action. Springer. Liu, J. H., & Hilton, D. (2005). How the past weighs on the present:Social representations of history and their role in identity politics. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 1–21. Liu, J. H., Lawrence, B., Ward, C., & Abraham, S. (2002). Social representations of history in Malaysia and Singapore: On the relationship between national and ethnic identity. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 3–20. Luhtanen, R., & Crocker, J. (1992). A collective self-esteem scale: Self-evaluation of one’s social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 302–318. The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute ed. (2004). Conscious Structure of Contemporary Japanese, 6th ed. (Gendai nihonjin-no Ishiki-kozo). Tokyo: Japan Broadcast Publishing (NHK books) (In Japanese).
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Is the Third Way Possible for Peace? The Dilemma of National Identity in Taiwan and Beyond Li-Li Huang
The people of Taiwan are facing a dilemma of double identity because both Taiwanese identity and Chinese identity are viable (Huang, Liu, & Chang, 2004). Double identity refers to an ambivalence about national identity and entails anxiety about collective identity as a result of the standoff between Taiwan’s two major political parties, the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT) (Anderson, 2004; Hwang, 2005). The DPP supports the independence of Taiwan, while the KMT opposes the idea of Taiwan’s independence. In the beginning, KMT formally claimed that the Republic of China (ROC) is the legitimate government of the whole of China in spite of the fact that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was recognized as a sovereign state by the United Nations. Nevertheless, after year 2004 KMT increased informal rapprochement with Mainland China. The KMT has ruled Taiwan from 1949 to 2000. The DPP was able to gain control of the executive branch of government in 2000 for the first time, but the KMT won back the executive branch in March 2008. This series of political events have caused conflict in society and across the strait. How has Taiwan come to such a predicament? What is the psychological substance of these dilemmas? Can they be transformed or settled in the future? In order to understand current conflict-and-peace phenomena in Taiwan, this chapter examines previous research from the historical, political, social, and psychological literature with an emphasis on psychological research. The focal concern of peace psychology after the Cold War was to highlight the geohistorical context as well as the distinction between episodic violence and structural violence (Christie, 2006). Montiel (2003) pointed out that colonial occupation, authoritarian governance, and interethnic oppression are regarded as the main forms of structural violence in Asia. Therefore, this chapter first traces Taiwan’s geohistorical context and then illustrates the structure of ethnicity and political power in Taiwan and across-strait relation as it describes local psychological phenomena related to peace. The researches were supported by grants of “Program for Promoting Academic Excellence of Universities (Phase II)” NSC 95-2752-H-032-001-PAE and NSC 96-2752-H-032-001-PAE.
C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_14, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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Geohistorical Context: The Basis of Conflict Among Taiwan’s Ethnic Groups Taiwan is an island on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. It lies off the southeastern coast of Asia, across the Taiwan Strait from China. Five thousand years ago, aborigines on Taiwan traded with other communities in Southeast Asia. Later, Taiwan was colonized by the Dutch, the Spanish (1624–1662), and then Han Chinese such as Hoklo and Hakka immigrants, as well as Ming loyalists, and Qing conquerors settled down in Taiwan (1662–1895). Between the first Sino-Japanese War (1895) and World War II (1945), Taiwan was a colony of Japan. Many Taiwanese identified with modern Japan and spoke Japanese fluently. In 1945, leader of KMT, Chiang Kei-Shek, and his government took over Taiwan after Japan was defeated in World War II. The KMT controlled the whole island and imposed their rule, their language (Mandarin), and their identity on the people of Taiwan and tried to impart to Taiwanese their dream of retaking China, which the KMT had lost to Mao’s Communist Party. Taiwan’s history can be divided into several stages with different distinctive social identifications and intergroup cues associated with each stage (Li, Liu, Huang, & Chang, 2007). These stages are: (1) the Dutch colonization period (1624–1662), (2) the immigration period (1662–1683), (3) the indigenization period, (4) the Japanese colonization period, (5) the KMT sovereign period, and (6) the DPP sovereign period (the first peaceful regime transition). In 2008, a seventh stage, (7) the KMT returns (the second peaceful regime transition), was added as the KMT party chairman Ma Ying-Jeou was elected president of Taiwan. Han Chinese make up 98% of Taiwan’s population. The remaining 2% are aborigines. The Han Chinese can be divided into three major ethnic groups. The Mingnan (also called Hoklo) group, which accounts for about 70 to 74% of the population, and the Hakka (12–15%) group arrived in Taiwan before 1945 and are called native Taiwanese (inside-province Taiwanese). Those who arrived after 1945 with the KMT are labeled outside-province Taiwanese and make up about 15% of the population. The structural conflict between inside- and outside-province Taiwanese grew out of a massacre in 1947 labeled the 228 (February 28) Incident in which the KMT killed or imprisoned over 10,000 inside-province Taiwanese in order to suppress political dissent (Lai, Myers, & Wei, 1991). From 1949 to 1987, the KMT ruled Taiwan with authoritarian power by means of martial law. Under martial law, direct presidential elections were never held, and new political parties, new newspaper and mass media companies, gatherings, parades, and strikes for public issues were all forbidden. Mandarin became the official national language. Chinese dialects such as Hoklo (Fu-Kien), Hakka, or aboriginal languages could not be used in school or on TV news reports or programs. The outside-province minority in Taiwan became the dominant ethnic group, while the Mingnan majority ethnic group and the nearly invisible Hokka and aboriginal groups, that is, the inside-province groups, were subordinate. Throughout KMT rule, the distinction between outside-province and inside-province was significant. There was inequality in the distribution of political
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power, tertiary education opportunities, and work opportunities in civil service, which was reflected in economic policy (Chang, 1993; Lin & Lin, 1993; Wang, 1993; Wu, 1993), all of which favored outside-province Taiwanese. Hierarchies among cultures are more tacit in daily lives than concrete objects and difficult to evaluate or rank, but they can be transmitted or promoted by means of a governmental system or reward and punishment system and compared as high versus low (Gellner, 1983), delicate versus gross, or elite versus popular. During the KMT’s reign over Taiwan, Chinese culture was dominant and was the symbol of the elite. Chinese culture and Mandarin (a northern dialect of mainland China and the official language of China) were imposed on the people of Taiwan by the government. In contrast, the Taiwanese (a southern dialect of mainland China, i.e., Fukien dialect) spoken by the majority was considered just a dialect, and Taiwanese culture was considered local, low, and vulgar (Wang, 1993).
Historical Representations and Evaluations by Ethnic Groups From the 1950s to the 1980s, the authoritarian KMT went through wide restructuring and implemented land reform. A period of great economic growth followed, and Taiwan became one of the Four Asian Tigers despite the constant threat of war with China and civil unrest. The economic miracle of Taiwan was originated and controlled by the government. At the same time, there was a tremendous downside: the sacrifice of democracy and social justice. The inequality of resource distribution created impetus for a social movement. The 1979 Meilidao incident involved an unsuccessful KMT crackdown on press freedom and the jailing of Taiwanese activists. The end of martial law in 1987 allowed for a change in the legal political oppression of inside-province Taiwanese. For example, the DPP was allowed to become a legally established opposition party. Then, the first direct election of a president of Taiwan in 1996, Lee Teng-hui (the first inside-province Taiwanese to serve as president), marked a further step in the democratization process. Lee was vice president under Chiang Ching-Kuo and his successor. The transition of power in 2000 in which the KMT was voted out of the executive branch after 50 years of continuous rule cemented the process. In other words, the government of Taiwan peacefully transitioned from an authoritarian to a democratic system. Our previous study surveying 828 adult Taiwanese from around the island revealed few differences among the three main ethnic groups (Mingnan, Hakka, outside province) with regard to what constitutes Taiwan’s modern history (Huang et al., 2004). Furthermore, there were also no significant differences of opinion between them in their evaluation of these historical events. However, there was no consensus among them in their evaluation of important leaders in Taiwanese history. The study used an open-ended nomination survey to identify the three most important contemporary leaders in Taiwanese history: Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Ching-kuo, and Lee Teng-hui. Participants indicated on
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a 7-point Likert scale the valence of their opinion about each of these leaders (1 = extremely negative, 4 = neutral, 7 = positive). Significant differences between the groups were identified in how much these three leaders were admired. Chiang Kai-shek, who was the cause of the 228 incident and the liberator of Taiwan from the Japanese, was regarded somewhat negatively by Mingnan Taiwanese (M = 3.69) and fairly positively by outside-province Taiwanese (M = 4.80), with Hakka in the middle (M = 4.0). Lee Teng-hui, the first inside-province Taiwanese president, was regarded moderately by Mingnan Taiwanese (M = 4.01) and Hakka (M = 4.1), but negatively by outside-province Taiwanese (M = 2.54). Chen Shui-bian, the first non-KMT president of Taiwan, and a Mingnan Taiwanese as well, received positive evaluations from Mingnan Taiwanese (M = 4.61), but negative evaluations from outside-province Taiwanese (M = 3.12). More recent leaders were surrounded by a greater degree of controversy between inside- and outside-province Taiwanese. The only figure who escaped controversy between inside- and outside-province Taiwanese was Chiang Ching-kuo. He was admired by all for ending martial law and setting Taiwan on its current course toward a Western-style democracy. Representations of Taiwanese history are a blend of consensus and polarized disagreement. Huang et al.’s (2004) study also indicated that the most important event in Taiwan’s history was the 228 Incident. However, all groups (including outsideprovince Chinese) regarded this event as equally negative, and overall, the story of the government’s move from authoritarian to democratic forms of governance was nominated and evaluated with consensus. The results suggest that there is a cultural consensus in Taiwan supporting a democratic system of governance. This consensus disappeared when it came to evaluating political leaders, however, with Mingnan and outside-province Taiwanese favoring their own and denigrating leaders from the other group. On balance, social representations of history were controversial in some domains (i.e., evaluations of political leaders) and consensual in others (i.e., the movement from authoritarian to democratic rule). This blend implies the double nature of Taiwanese representations of culture and political life and causes ambivalence toward Taiwanese national identity. What is the nature of this psychological ambivalence of Taiwanese national identity vis-à-vis Chinese identity? I now discuss the issue in more detail.
The Emergence and Developing of National Identity in Taiwan Whether Taiwan is a nation or a part of China has been a controversial issue because of a divergence between substantial and international legal concerns. The ROC was established in 1912; went through periods of warlordism, Japanese invasion, civil war between the KMT and the Communists; and was a founding member of the United Nations. From 1928, the ROC was legally ruled by the KMT. After1949, the KMT withdrew from China to Taiwan, the ROC on Taiwan was referred to as Nationalist China or Free China, and its constitution claimed legitimacy over all of China. But, in fact, the PRC was established by the Chinese Communist Party in
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mainland China in 1949. During the early Cold War, the ROC was recognized by most Western nations and the United Nations as the sole legitimate government of China. After 1970s, the ROC began to lose these recognitions. But the ROC has not formally relinquished its claim as the legitimate government of all China. In the subsequent decades, the ROC has been more commonly referred to as Taiwan. In the 1980s and 1990s the political system evolved into a real democratic system, with the first direct presidential election in 1996 and the 2000 election of Chen Shui-bian, the first non-KMT president. The ROC evolved from a single-party state with full global recognition into a multiparty democratic state with limited international recognition. The development of a national identity has been a core issue for Taiwanese people. By definition, national identity includes two components: one is the nation; the other is a collective identity. The fundamental features of a nation are “a named human population sharing a historical territory, common myths and historical memories, a mass public culture, a common economy, and common legal rights and duties for all members” (Smith, 1991). This definition focuses on commonality, both in history and in contemporary society, but neglects international relations. Taiwan as a state is not legitimate in the eyes of the international community, although the people of Taiwan have a consensus on history, culture, economy, and their own legal system. As the word nation denotes both a legal state and a people, this dual meaning reflects the ambivalent national identity of Taiwanese. Nationalism is a kind of index for categorizing people. Many empirical studies have pointed out that Chinese identity has gradually declined in Taiwan, while Taiwanese identity has increased, while the double identity of Chinese and Taiwanese has remained constant (e.g., Chang & Hsiao, 1987; Li, 2003). Representative sampling long-term surveys of identity have been conducted by the Election Study Center at National Cheng-chi University twice a year since 1992. As shown in Fig. 1, from 1992 to 2007, Chinese identity declined from 26.2 to 5.4%, Taiwanese identity increased from 17.3 to 43.7%, and double identity (both Taiwanese and Chinese) moved from 45.4 to 44.5%. In other words, double identity is most common in Taiwan, and Chinese and Taiwanese have changed inversely. The dramatic turning point in Taiwanese identity’s increase was in 1996 when the first direct presidential election took place and the Mainland China authority threatened to attack Taiwan with missiles. It also rose after 2000 when Chen Shui-bian was elected as the first non-KMT pro-independence president.
Chinese Consciousness Versus Taiwanese Consciousness The concepts of nation state and nationalism have not been popular in psychological articles. The definition of nationalism also lacks consensus in social science and even in political science. Just like the concepts of ethnicity and ethnic identity, the concepts of nationalism and national identity need to be clarified for the purpose of measurement and discussion.
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60
50.9 47.3
42.1 39.1 40.3
41.3
44.1 43.8
39.4 39.3 33.7
Both
Non response
19.2 13.5
6.5
4.3
5.0 5.4
07.12
5.3 4.1
5.5
07.06
4.9
6.4
06.12
5.7
6.2
06.06
4.9
7.3
05.12
4.9
6.1 7.2
05.06
5.6
6.3
04.12
5.9
6.3
04.06
4.7
7.7
03.12
4.6
03.06
5.9
7.2
8.5 9.9
02.12
5.8
6.2
10.9 10.3 9.6
02.06
98.06
6.2 5.0
6.7
9.1
01.12
8.6
98.12
7.3
13.1 10.7
97.06
7.8
36.9 37.3
44.1 44.1 43.7 43.7
16.4 16.3
96.12
8.9
42.0
Chinese 21.4
10.2
95.12
92.12
0
92.06
8.9
43.7 42.9 42.9 41.8 41.7 40.6 40.5 41.5
Taiwanese
15.8
11.0
44.4 45.0 45.5 44.4 45.2 45.8 44.5
43.8 43.2
26.2
24.5 20.5
95.06
10
18.8
40.6
45.4
23.1
96.06
17.3
20.2
43.9 43.2 42.9
01.06
20
24.9 25.0
99.12
26.2 23.2
35.9 36.7
99.06
26.2
94.12
Percentage
40
30
48.3
46.3
46.2
44.6 42.8
00.12
49.1 45.4
00.06
50
Year
Fig. 1 Changes in the Taiwanese/Chinese identity of Taiwanese as tracked in surveys (1992-2007) Sources: Election Study Center, NCCU L.-L. Huang
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Anthropologist Benedict Anderson (1983/1991) regarded nationalism as an “imagined community” from the perspective of social constructivism. DiazGuerrero (1997) pointed out that nationalism can be conceived of as the ideology of a modern nation-state or as any movement directed towards the establishment of a new nation-state. According to these definitions, both Chinese identity and Taiwanese identity can be regarded as kinds of national identity instead of as ethnic identities. The PRC consists of five main ethnic groups (Han, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans, and Uyghurs). The famous Chinese historian Chang Hao (2002) indicated that since the revolution in 1911 led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen that overthrew the Qing dynasty, China has denoted a nation of people with the same language and race with a common fate and collective self. But due to a long Chinese history, China simultaneously implies the meaning of politics, culture, language, and ethnicity (Bai, 1999; Huang, 1999). Because of the KMT’s rule over Taiwan for over 50 years, “China” could be an imagined community (Huang, 2006), and national identity of China has become part of the implicit ideology of the people of Taiwan. Summarizing the previous relevant discourses, Chinese consciousness can be said to include the following five beliefs: (1) peaceful coexistence among the five ethnicities of the people of China, (2) the five ethnicities have a homogeneous culture and the same ancestors, (3) a broad outlook on China’s long history and culture, (4) the KMT’s political legitimacy over Taiwan, and (5) the KMT’s contribution to Taiwan (Huang, 2007). However, the national identity of Taiwan has encountered dramatic events and transitions. In the past, Taiwan was colonized or ruled by a number of countries or regimes, including the ROC, and the people of Taiwan always submitted themselves to powerful outsiders. The ROC, which has been the sole regime of Taiwan for more than 60 years, has not been recognized as a nation since being replaced by the PRC as a member of the United Nations in 1971 in spite of having its own land, people, constitution, government, and president. In other words, Taiwanese identity has swung between local people (as one part of “great China”) and nationals (keeping their own land, constitution, and government) as well. Therefore, Taiwanese identity needs to make an extraordinary transition from ethnic identity (as a local people) to national identity (as a national group). Gurin, Miller, and Gurin (1980) defined identification as “the awareness of having ideas, feelings, and interests similar to others who share the same stratum characteristics” and consciousness as “a set of political beliefs and action orientations arising out of this awareness of similarity.” They also indicated that the different social rankings of the different ethnic groups may cause inequality and oppression that can give rise to different possibilities for political mobility. In other words, those in the lowerranked strata tend to have a sense of grievance, frustration, and discontent with their situation, and they may share the view that their situation is the illegitimate result of structural forces. The sense of group deprivation, discontent with access to power, and awareness of blocked opportunities may push them to take action to fight for their rights (Gurin et al., 1980). By creating a democracy, Taiwan now has the freedom to make its own future. Since the end of martial law in 1987 and the first direct election of the president in
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L.-L. Huang
1996, immigrants from the various periods have gradually fused into new Taiwanese in contrast to Chinese. President Lee Teng-hui proposed a two-nation theory in 1996 and his successor Chen Shui-bian also made a statement about “one nation on each side.” In other words, both Presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian have held the view that it is a sovereign and independent country separate from mainland China. According to these discourses, Taiwanese and Chinese can designate different national identifications with different ideologies. Taiwan nationalists claim that four ethnic groups, such as Mingnan (also called Hoklo), Hakka, outside-province (also called new-resident or mainlanders), and Aborigines, settled in Taiwan over the various periods of history to form a single community and a new nation (Wang, 2003; Shih, 2003). Shih (2003) as a famous Taiwanese nationalist, advocator of peace, and prolific political scientist indicated that this idea is a forward-looking wish that uses a democratic and selfdetermination approach to transform a society traditionally dominated by Han immigrants and refugees into a modern nation state. Then, Taiwanese can imply not only a local ethnical consciousness but also a focus for national identification. According to discourses on Taiwanese nationalism (Huang, 2000, Shih 2003), Taiwanese consciousness can be summarized to include: (1) the concept of community (the will to develop Taiwan together), (2) the concept of pluralism (multiple cultures and multiple ethnicities that discard the grand China complex), (3) resistance and separation (resist authoritarianism, recognize and prioritize Taiwanese characteristics), and (4) loving Taiwan (encouraging current residents to emphasize Taiwanese subjectivity). Taiwan is an international political reality, but it also represents the imagination of a new nation, although not all people share the same image of the future (Wu, 2001). In sum, historically speaking, the national identities of China and Taiwan have entailed consciousness of imagined communities generated under strong pressure from the outside. Just as Chinese identity originated from revolution led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, Taiwanese identity emerged out of colonization by Japan and authoritative rule by early KMT. They have been achieved through political mobilization and effort initiated by many people. This identification process is a floating one; it can move from one identification to another new and conflicting one. Since the transformation process in Taiwan is not yet complete, conflicts still exist in several domains: substantialism versus constructivism, blood relationships versus residency, unification versus separation, fusion versus subjectivity, and legitimacy versus illegitimacy. Taiwan has been like a child growing out of a situation under strict authority and gaining more autonomy. According to the awaking theory of ideology (Gurin et al., 1980), in recent Taiwan, Taiwanese identity that is associated with subjectivity, freedom, democracy, and autonomy has gradually replaced Chinese identity, which is associated with restoration, centralization of authority, and stagnation. But are Chinese and Taiwanese identities really incompatible? What are the components of Chinese identity and Taiwanese identity? Are they rooted in different psychological bases? Which identity is more realistic and acceptable? Is the new one better than the old one? In order to answer these questions, the following studies were conducted and will be reported.
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Study 1: The Ideologies of National Identity and Relevant Factors The main purpose of this empirical study conducted in 2004 was to probe the differences among three types of identification in terms of consciousness, collective esteem, and psychological and political attitudes; and also to clarify the relationship between national identification and social issues in Taiwan.
Methods Participants The responses to the self-report questionnaire from 1368 participants (667 female and 697 male with four unknown) were collected during 2004. The participants were from all over Taiwan and were selected from convenience sampling, such as snowball sampling at the workplace, friend network, and relative network, and seeking outside-province Taiwanese respondents in order to obtain a more representative sample from all groups. Their ages ranged from 18 to 81 years, with an average of 32.8 and standard deviation of 12.2. Measures National identity. In a previous study we used a forced choice between five logically exclusive groupings of Chinese and Taiwanese to identify participants’ national identities. These were: (1) I am a Chinese and a Taiwanese (Chinese First); (2) I am a Taiwanese and a Chinese (Taiwanese First); (3) I am a Taiwanese, not a Chinese (Taiwanese Only); (4) I am a Chinese, not a Taiwanese (Chinese only); and (5) I am not a Taiwanese or a Chinese (Neither). People with a double identity were separated into Chinese First and Taiwan First. The study showed that the first three identities were most popular in Taiwan and that the Taiwanese Only identity was a new increasing trend. The study also showed that the three groups differed on historical and political-cultural issues. In another previous focus-group interview conducted in 2001 (Huang, 2003), it was found that those who identified themselves as Taiwanese Only tended to regard Taiwan and China as mutually independent nations and also considered that Taiwanese people may have their own historical and cultural perspectives. Those who identified themselves with a double identity tended to prefer preserving the status quo. They did not have a strong national consciousness. Additionally, they also tended to see Chinese as a cultural concept and Taiwan as resident place or hometown. It is clear from these studies that the terms Chinese and Taiwanese have multiple meanings, depending on the context of usage. Currently in Taiwan, the first three types are the most dominant national identities. Since these types were distinguishable categories, there should be observable differences in ideology and other psychological characters.
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In this study, participants placed themselves into one of the five types of identities. The three most popular were: Chinese First (291 participants, 21.3%), Taiwanese First (670 participants, 49.0%), and Taiwanese Only (351 participants, 25.7%). It is clear that double identity is the most common in Taiwan with 70.3% of participants, and Taiwanese First is the majority with 49% participants. Consciousness of national identity. Consciousness of national identity was measured with a set of 40 statements with 7-point Likert scale constructed by the author (Huang, 2007). Four factors were derived through factor analysis, with 11, 7, 11, and 5 items. The internal consistency alpha values were 0.93, 0.88, 0.89, and 0.79, respectively. The first factor, Greater Chinese Consciousness, included statements such as “Chinese culture is broad and its contributions have had great value,” “Taiwanese people’s forefathers are from China and this connection should not be ignored,” and “the Chinese people consist of various ethnic groups and those groups should have a common consciousness.” The second factor was called “KMT Legitimacy.” It was composed of items such as “the early KMT government was a legitimate representative of the Chinese people so Taiwanese are not separable from the Chinese people” and “Taiwan was at one time a province of China, and the KMT resumed governance after the Second World War and so should not be seen as a foreign power.” The third factor was named “Consciousness of Being Separate and Unique” and was composed of statements including “because of the influence of aboriginal people, the Dutch, Japanese, and Americans, Taiwanese culture is a mixed marine culture and is very different from the Chinese plains culture,” “Taiwan has always been controlled by foreign powers, and we should aim for selfdetermination,” and “after the long isolation from each other China and Taiwan have developed very different cultures and should be able to become two different nations.” The last factor was “Small but Beautiful Taiwan” and was composed of statements including “Although Taiwan has a small area and not many people, it has world vision and is part of the global network” and “Although Taiwan is small, its democratic politics, modern lifestyle, and popular education make it a beautiful nation.” Affection of national identity. The study employed the collective self-esteem scale constructed by Luhtanen and Crocker (1992) with Chinese and Taiwanese as the targets of identification to measure affection of identity. After a revision, eight items using a 6-point Likert scale were used to measure collective self-esteem of Chinese identity and collective self-esteem of Taiwanese identity. A higher score indicated a stronger identity collective esteem. The internal consistency alpha values were 0.96 and 0.92, respectively. Imagination toward future nationhood. In addition to having a set of consciousness and identity affection, identification also has an action orientation dimension. This study used a 9-point scale anchored by “unification with China” and “Taiwan independence” to measure imagination toward Taiwan’s future nationhood as the action orientation for each national identity. Personality factors related to national identity. In the field of political psychology, authoritarianism and social dominance orientation (SDO) have been the two most important personality variables for the prediction of political attitudes and
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behaviors (Jost & Sidanius, 2004). Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) has also been frequently used to predict intergroup ethnic relations and ethnic discrimination (Altemeyer, 1998). SDO reflects a person’s tendency to believe that social groups can be classified on a superior/inferior dimension, and it can be used to predict a person’s nationalism (Sidanius & Pratto, 2004). The combination of RWA and SDO provides the best prediction for racial prejudice and out-group bias (Whitley, 1999; Altemeyer, 2004). In this study, SDO was measured using 16 items with a 7-point Likert scale compiled by Sidanius and Pratto (1999). A higher score means the participant has a stronger tendency to support the dominant group and less sympathy for the inferior group. Eight of the 16 items had good internal consistency (α = 0.84) and so were adapted from the scale. RWA was measured with 16 statements (7-point) selected from a scale created by Altemeyer (1998). A higher score meant that the participant tended to obey and support the authority system and conventional beliefs. A factor analysis of the RWA items resulted in three factors. The first factor had an alpha of 0.80 and consisted of eight items. It was labeled “Tradition-Conservatism.” The second factor included five items with an alpha of 0.62 and was named “Openness.” The last one consisted of only two items and was labeled “Autonomy.” Others. There were other measures in the questionnaire for this study. Two 9-point-scale items were introduced to measure the tendency to support the KMT and DPP. Fourteen items with 6-point Likert scale were used to examine perceptions of ethnic group equality. Five semantic differential scales with six points for opposite adjectives were used to evaluate Chinese and Taiwanese culture. Three items measured the closeness between the USA and Taiwan, and six items assessed the possibility of Asian international conflict. Finally there were also two other sets of questions. The first one (cooperative-cross-strait) had three questions and asked about “whether the cross-strait cooperation or the rising of China will benefit Taiwan,” while the second set (competitive-cross-strait) asked “whether the development of China will harm Taiwan.”
Results Differences Among National Identity Table 1 shows that all three types of national identities differed on all four national consciousness factors. The Chinese First identity had significantly higher scores on the first and second factors. The Taiwanese Only identity had higher scores on the third and fourth factors. The Taiwanese First identity scores tended to be in between the other two types, and the difference with the Chinese First scores was smaller than the difference with Taiwanese Only. Relating to affection of national identity, Table 1 also shows that the three types of national identity had different levels of identity affection toward being Chinese or Taiwanese. Even concerning imagination toward future nationhood, there was a significant difference among the three types of identity (see Table 1). The Chinese
260
Table 1 Ideologies, personality, and political party support by national identity National identity Consciousness of national identity (1–6) Consciousness of greater Chinese KMT Legitimacy Consciousness of being separate and unique Small but beautiful Taiwan Affection of national identity (1–6) Chinese collective self-esteem Taiwanese collective self-esteem Imagination toward Future (1–9) Unification with China Taiwan independence Personality (1–7) Social dominance orientation (SDO) Tradition-conservatism Openness Autonomy Political party support (1–9) DDP support KMT support
Chinese first (n = 291)
Taiwanese first (n = 670)
Taiwanese only Total mean F value (n = 350) (N = 1311) (2, 1310)
Scheffe test M1–M2 M2–M3 M1–M3
M1 (SD) 4.73 (0.86) 4.24 (1.00) 3.18 (0.91) 4.64 (0.96)
M2 (SD) 4.27 (0.83) 3.78 (0.94) 3.68 (0.83) 4.71 (0.85)
M3 (SD) 2.75 (1.07) 2.38 (1.07) 4.88 (0.79) 5.19 (0.83)
M (SD) 4.00 (1.18) 3.50 (1.22) 3.89 (1.05) 4.83 (0.90)
465.0∗ 293.0∗ 376.6∗ 42.9∗
0.46∗ 0.45∗ −0.49∗ −0.07
1.51∗ 1.42∗ −1.21∗ −0.48∗
1.97∗ 1.87∗ −1.70∗ −0.55∗
4.59 (1.02) 4.40 (0.95)
3.75 (1.09) 4.75 (0.86)
1.83 (7.07) 5.42 (0.74)
3.42 (11.5) 4.86 (0.92)
639.6∗ 121.5∗
0.84∗ −0.34∗
1.92∗ −0.67∗
2.76∗ −1.01∗
5.06 (2.14) 3.46 (2.23)
4.18 (1.98) 4.62 (2.15)
1.89 (1.40) 7.40 (1.90)
3.76 (2.23) 5.11 (2.56)
258.8∗ 313.3∗
0.87∗ −1.15∗
2.29∗ −2.78∗
3.18∗ −3.94∗
3.54 (1.18) 4.70 (1.12) 4.50 (0.98) 5.52 (0.98)
3.60 (1.07) 4.48 (0.98) 4.51 (0.95) 5.48 (0.98)
3.19 (1.27) 4.12 (1.31) 5.01 (0.94) 5.90 (0.95)
3.47 (1.16) 4.43 (1.13) 4.64 (0.98) 5.60 (0.99)
15.4∗ 23.2∗ 35.4∗ 22.8∗
−0.06 0.21 −0.01 −0.04
0.42∗ 0.36∗ −0.49∗ −0.37∗
0.35∗ 0.58∗ −0.51∗ −0.42∗
3.22 (1.85) 5.44 (1.84)
4.19 (1.89) 4.96 (1.74)
6.05 (1.93) 3.28 (1.99)
4.48 (2.15) 4.61 (2.01)
192.4∗ 134.1∗
−0.97∗ 0.48∗
−1.86∗ 1.68∗
−2.83∗ 2.16∗ L.-L. Huang
Note. the number in parenthesis of the first column means the range of score. M = mean, SD = standard deviation. ∗ p < .001.
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First group tended to support unification (M = 5.06), and they were clearly against Taiwan’s independence (M = 3.46, with a median = 5, t (287) = 7.4, p < .001). The Taiwanese Only group were against unification (M = 1.89) and strongly supported Taiwan’s independence (M = 7.40). The Taiwanese First group preferred the current status and took a neutral stance toward unification and independence (M = 4.18 and M = 4.62), although they indicated less support for unification (t (662) = –3.2, p < .001). In terms of personality, as seen in Table 1, the Chinese First and Taiwanese First groups had similar SDO patterns. Tradition-conservatism, openness, and autonomy had significant differences with the Taiwanese Only group. The latter seemed to be less socially dominant, less conservative in a traditional sense, and more open and autonomous. Another study (Liu, Huang, & McFefries, 2008) also showed that in Taiwan, people with a stronger RWA tended to support the KMT, which has dominated the Taiwan political scene for a long time. The same study also showed that, since the 2000 government transition, supporters of the DPP have been displaying a stronger authoritarian personality. In further analysis of this study, the collective self-esteem (affective component) and consciousness (cognitive component) of national identity are combined with imagination of future nationhood (behavioral tendency) as an ideology of national identity (Huang, 2007). Then, using discriminant analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, three latent variables, that is, Big-China-ism (Chinese First), Taiwan-loving-ism (Taiwanese First), and Taiwan-independence-ism (Taiwanese Only), were assembled to specify the ideologies of three kinds of national identity, respectively. In addition, SDO and RWA with a confirmatory factor analysis were also further analyzed and extracted two latent variables, such as SDO-AUTH and OPEN-AUTO (see Fig. 2). A structural equation model (SEM) was built to identify the intermediation between the latent personality variables and latent ideology variables. The goodness-of-fit test for the model wasχ2 (44, N=1315) = 436.8, χ2 /df = 9.92, GFI = 0.94, AGFI = 0.89, RMSEA = 0.089, CFI = 0.97, NFI = 0.96 and showed that this model is acceptable. From the SEM in Fig. 2, the latent variable formed from SDO and the tradition-conservatism of RWA had a significant positive influence on Big-China-ism (0.45) and a marginal positive influence on Taiwan-loving-ism (0.18). The influence on Taiwan-independence-ism was significantly negative (–0.08). The other latent variable formed from openness and autonomy (from negative RWA) had a significantly positive influence on Taiwanindependence-ism and Taiwan-loving-ism (0.39, 0.37), but a significantly negative influence on Big-China-ism (–0.24). That is to say, Big-China-ism and Taiwanindependence-ism have almost opposite psychological foundations. The former tended to be conservative (in the traditional definition) and short on openness and autonomy. The latter tended to be more open and autonomous and also less willing to follow tradition and support the dominant group. Bell Shape and M Shape The Chinese First identity group tended to support the KMT (M = 5.44 when measured on a 9-point scale) rather than the DPP (M = 3.22). The gap is 2.22 with t (287)
262
L.-L. Huang Greater Chinese .92***
SDO
.54***
.87*** .45***
.82***
.73***
SDO-AUTH
KMT legitimacy
BC-ism .83***
Chinese CSE
.18***
TRA & CON
Pro-Unification. –.08* .72***
–.14***
TL-ism –.24***
OPENNESS OPEN-AUTO OTO
.75***
.74***
Taiwanese CSE
.37*** .86***
.39*** .75***
AUTONOMY
Small & Beautiful
TI-ism .78***
Separate & Unique Pro-Independence
Fig. 2 SEM of psychological basis and ideology of national identity. χ 2 = 436.79df = 44χ 2 /df = 9.92GFI = .94AGFI = .89RMSEA = .089CFI = .97NFI = .96∗ p < .05∗∗∗ p < .001. SDO=Social Dominance Orientation; TRA= Tradition; CON=Conservatism; AUTH=Authoritarianism; OPE= Openness; AUTO=Autonomy; BS-ism=Big-China-ism; TL-ism=Taiwan-loving-ism; TI-ism=Taiwan-Independence-ism; KMT= Kuo-Min-Tang; CES=collective self -esteem
= 12.4, p = .000. The Taiwanese Only identity group, on the other hand, strongly supported the DPP (M = 6.05) rather than the KMT (M = 3.28). The difference (2.77) was significant with t (350) = 15.3, p = .000 (see Table 1). Political party support was on opposite extremes of the spectrum. This result is consistent with the earlier SEM model; those with latent Big-China-ism ideology tended to support the KMT, while those with latent Taiwan-independence-ism ideology tended to support the DPP, while those with Taiwan-loving-ism ideology tended to be in between. As results show that the Chinese First and Taiwanese First identity groups displayed high similarity in most aspects, which is the result of their double identity and sharing Chinese consciousness. The Taiwanese Only identity group members distinguish themselves from Mainland China either politically or culturally, but otherwise share with Taiwanese First identity group in Taiwanese consciousness and regard Taiwan as first priority. The scores of Taiwanese Only group on the ideologies and the personality elements are different from, even opposite to Chinese First group. Figure 3 shows that the current pattern of political parties in Taiwan has an M-shape distribution. People can be grouped into pan-blue or pan-green segments. The political scene in the Taiwan is divided into two camps, with the pro-unification and center-right KMT, People First Party (PFP), and New Party forming the Pan-Blue Coalition, and the pro-independence and center-left DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) forming the Pan-Green Coalition. In this study, 619 (54%) participants reported themselves belonging to pan-blue, while 527 (46%) participants reported themselves as pan-green. In terms of national identity, the distribution has a bell shape, with the Chinese First identity falling into the deep-blue
National Identity Dilemma in Taiwan Fig. 3 Ideology of national identity and political party support
263 Bell shape of ideology
M shape of political party support
segment and they mostly support the KMT. The Taiwanese Only identity represents the deep-green segment and they support the DDP. Pan-blue and pan-green not only disagree sharply on national identity, but also quarrel over all of social issues that are implicitly extended to be political affairs. Most of Taiwanese who belong to Taiwanese First identity group fall in the central part of curve and inevitably suffer the extremely conflicting discourses and opinions on public policy and tend to lose hold of core values. In brief, the incompatible two segments divided along issues of national identity, that is pro-unification or pro-independence, lead to considerable social disquiet in Taiwan.
Perception of Ethnic Inequality The citizens of Taiwan can be grouped into four ethnic groups. Since the 228 Incident in 1947, there have been issues related to differences between insideprovince and outside-province citizens. These issues include inequality in power and resources in the fields of politics, culture, education, and economics (Chang, 1993; Lin & Lin, 1993; Wang, 1993; Wu, 1993). Recently, the conflict has transformed into a discussion among the four ethnic groups (Wang, 2003). The Hakka now have a dedicated television channel. The aboriginal people have gained preferential treatment in education, employment, and elections and managed to gain more of a share in power and resources. Their visibility is now increasing. The 14 items concerned whether political, economic, land, employment, medical, and other resources in Taiwan are shared and distributed equally and fairly among the various ethnic groups. It also examined cooperation and competition between ethnic groups. Table 2 shows that among the three main national identities, there were no major differences in perception of ethnic inequality. Everyone tended to believe that the distribution of resources and opportunities among ethnic groups is roughly equal, that competition among the ethic groups is mild, and that interethnicity conflict is also mild.
264
Table 2 Perception of intergroup relations by national identity National identity Interethnicity inequality (1–6) Competition between ethnic groups Inequality between ethnic groups Evaluation of Chinese culture Evaluation of Taiwanese culture International conflict in Asian (1–6) Threat of Asian conflict Closeness to America Cross-straits relations (1–6) Cooperative-cross-strait Competitive-cross-strait Closeness of cross-strait relations (1–7) Geographical relation Historical relation Cultural relation Political relation Economical relation Blood relationship
Chinese first (n = 291)
Taiwanese first (n = 670)
Taiwanese only (n = 350)
Total mean (N = 1311)
F value Scheffe test (2, 1310) M1−M2 M2−M3
M1 (SD) 3.82 (1.01) 4.14 (0.87) 4.30 (0.73) 3.83 (0.91)
M2 (SD) 3.75 (0.91) 4.13 (0.87) 4.10 (0.85) 3.85 (0.77)
M3 (SD) 3.94 (0.98) 4.21 (0.91) 3.14 (1.02) 3.91(0.77)
M (SD) 3.81 (0.96) 4.15 (0.88) 3.89 (0.99) 3.86 (0.81)
4.46 0.91 176.2∗ 1.01
3.87 (0.96) 4.24 (0.81)
3.90 (0.82) 4.22 (0.81)
4.23 (1.02) 4.43 (0.89)
3.98 (0.92) 4.28 (0.84)
4.15 (0.98) 3.77 (1.15) 4.09 (1.06) 4.36 (2.01) 5.31 (1.46) 5.05 (1.58) 3.97 (1.78) 4.94 (1.54) 5.79 (1.49)
3.81 (0.90) 3.86 (1.11) 3.69 (1.02) 3.73 (1.86) 4.82 (1.48) 4.65 (1.55) 3.45 (1.83) 4.64 (1.57) 5.16 (1.58)
3.05 (1.08) 4.28 (1.15) 2.82 (1.00) 2.64 (1.61) 3.64 (1.43) 3.61 (1.54) 2.73 (1.77) 3.72 (1.54) 3.64 (1.59)
3.68 (1.05) 3.95 (1.15) 3.55 (1.12) 3.58 (1.93) 4.61 (1.58) 4.46 (1.64) 3.37 (1.85) 4.46 (1.62) 4.89 (1.75)
17.9∗ 8.20∗ 112.5∗ 20.7∗ 135.4∗ 73.7∗ 117.6∗ 78.5∗ 38.4∗ 58.1∗ 169.8∗
M1−M3
0.07 0.01 0.20 −0.02
−0.19 −0.07 0.91∗ −0.07
−0.12 −0.06 1.06∗ −0.08
−0.03 0.02
−0.33∗ −0.22∗
−0.36∗ −0.19
−0.34∗ −0.008 0.40∗ 0.63∗ 0.49∗ 0.40∗ 0.52∗ 0.30 0.63∗
0.76∗∗ −0.51∗ 0.87∗ 1.09∗ 1.18∗ 1.04∗ 0.72∗ 0.92∗ 1.51∗
1.10∗ −0.42∗ 1.27∗ 1.71∗ 1.67∗ 1.44∗ 1.23∗ 1.22∗ 2.14∗
Note. the number in parenthesis of the first column means the range of score. M = mean, SD = standard deviation.∗ p < .001. L.-L. Huang
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Nonetheless, the betel-nut and flip-flops of Taiwanese culture are treated as symbols of vulgarity as opposed to the Mandarin long gown and jacket, which is the classic symbol of grace in Chinese culture. For a long time these cultural symbols have represented the rank of social values. They also may be internalized into a person’s value system and influence a person’s ideology in terms of national identity. Table 2 shows that differences in the evaluation of Chinese culture among three identities were significant, while differences in the evaluation of Taiwanese culture were not. The Chinese First group had a significantly higher evaluation of Chinese culture as opposed to Taiwanese culture, with a difference of 0.47 and t (278) = 9.18, p <.001. The Taiwanese First group also had a higher evaluation of Chinese culture than Taiwanese culture, but with a smaller gap of 0.25, t (656) =7.03, p < .001. The Taiwanese Only group had a much higher evaluation of Taiwanese culture than Chinese culture, with a difference of 0.77, t (345) = –10.3, p < .001. However, all three identity groups have almost the same evaluation of Taiwanese culture.
International Relations with the United States Identity entails a relationship between the self and others (Dittmer & Kim, 1993). Under social identity theory, identity requires the separation of the us-group and the them-group through distinguishable cues. A cooperative or competitive relationship between groups influences the boundary between us and them. Hostility from the outside or a crisis can intensify in-group consciousness and cohesiveness. Internal conflict within an ethnic group obscures the boundary with the outside. The USA and China are important external factors influencing national identity in Taiwan. The USA has maintained a friendly relationship with Taiwan. For Taiwan, the USA is a positive reference group (Yuan, 1999). The USA has a deep influence on Taiwan in economic, political, and defense aspects. Taiwanese education, culture, and political systems use those of the USA as guide. However, in 1971, the US government softened its anti-communist stance and accepted the PRC into the United Nations, which has negatively influenced Taiwan’s position in the international community. The USA withdrew diplomatic recognition from Taiwan. Such developments negatively impacted the Taiwanese people’s opinion of the government of the USA (Huang & Hwang, 1979). But otherwise, the USA has maintained a close relationship with Taiwan (Yuan, 1999). Table 2 demonstrates that all three national identity groups have little difference in their attitude towards the USA as well.
Relations with China (PRC) China has been a negative reference group for Taiwan, the historical and cultural relationship notwithstanding. Taiwan and the China became two conflicting political entities after 1949. In the early years, the PRC adopted a closed-door policy,
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and the Cold War influenced relations between two sides. In 1978, China adopted the reform-openness policy, and in 1987, Taiwan began to permit its citizens to visit China. Frequent interaction among the people from the two sides of the strait has not promoted political integration as predicted by integration theory. In fact, divergence and mistrust have intensified (Kao, 1999). Hostile incidents like the thousandisland-lake accident, the missile-launch exercise, China’s efforts to force Taiwan out of international meetings and organizations, and its anti-separation law have advanced the decline of Chinese identity within Taiwan and the rise of Taiwanese identity (Lin, 2002, 1997). University students in Taiwan have prejudice and negative stereotypes about the people of China (Chuang, 2003). Although China has also sent out some friendly signals, like its intention for negotiation and open door for investment, and it has allowed limited direct transport and offered gifts, the difference in national identity still affects attitude toward the cross-strait relations. Table 2 shows that the three national identity groups had very different attitudes on the two themes. The Chinese First group had a higher cooperative crossstrait score than competitive cross-strait score with a difference of 0.38, t (285) = 3.68, p < .001. The Taiwanese First group had similar scores on the two themes. The Taiwanese Only group had a much higher competitive cross-strait score than cooperative-cross-strait score; the difference was 1.23, t (346) = 12.9, p = .000. It seemed the latter group felt more threat from China than the first two groups. After the analysis of the relational, individual, and collective self-aspects scale (RIC) (Uleman et al., 2000), it was clear that the three identity groups had a significant difference in closeness across the strait. In general, the Chinese First group tended to agree that closeness is high (M = 4.09), especially in the dimensions of blood relationship (M = 5.79), history (M = 5.31), and culture (M = 5.31). This group also thought that closeness in the political dimension was lower (M = 3.97). The Taiwanese Only group thought that the geographic and political dimensions had the lowest closeness (M = 2.64 and 2.73, respectively), and this group’s response to the closeness in blood relationship (M = 3.64) was significantly lower than the score for the Chinese First group by 2.14. The Taiwan Only group also had a stronger perception that Taiwan is part of the Asia crisis of international conflict; the other two groups had a lower perception of crisis.
Study 2: The Imagined Future Nationhood The common view accepted by social scientists is that history is the major factor for imagined community formation (Anderson, 1983/1991; Hobsbawm, 1990; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001) because history represents collective memory. There is a cluster of unique narratives or stories on the origin and growth of each nation and people (Malinowski, 1926). However, the issue of national identity in Taiwan has entered a new era. Chinese identity has faded, while Taiwanese identity has expanded and intensified. Taiwan has removed its authoritarian regime and acquired freedom under a new democratic system, which ensures a more competitive interpretation
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of history. The postwar baby boomers in Taiwan have become the nucleus of society. They not only read historical texts, but also engage in the creation of history through their actions. The creation of history and the ideals for the future require activity and passion. In order to investigate the Taiwanese people’s views of the future, Study 2 was conducted and parts of results will be reported as following.
Methods Participants In 2006, we surveyed 416 adult participants, that is, 212 males and 204 females, with ages ranging from 18 to 85 years ( M = 32.01, SD = 10.9). We identified our respondents through convenience sampling.
Measures The first set of questions used a 9-point scale to measure cross-strait concerns. We asked “When choosing to support unification or independence, what’s the importance you assign to (a) cross-strait historical background, (b) recent or existing cross-strait interaction, and (c) possible future Cross-Strait developments?” The second set of questions included 6-point Likert scale items about the participants’ feelings toward Mainland China. Then, the researcher constructed three stories relating the “The Imagined Future Nationhood.” Story A was titled as “Unification is the choice,” story B was “Independence is the choice,” and story C was “Confederation is the choice” (see appendix). Each story included 142–160 words. In the questionnaire following each story, participants used a 7-point scale to evaluate how much they liked the story and how possible the story sounded to them.
Results Look Ahead or Look Backward Table 3 shows when people in Taiwan consider cross-strait relations, future development is more important than historical background. In other words, Taiwanese of today look ahead more than looking backward. People in Taiwan feel threatened (M = 3.95) and hold little trust (M = 2.64) toward Mainland China. The participants express concern over the “economic slump caused by China’ protection policy,” “war started by China,” and “Taiwan being fully isolated in the global community under China’s pressure.” With this kind of mistrust and insecurity, participants proposed self-reliance (M = 3.86). The item said: “As long as the Taiwanese are united, we can control the future of Taiwan” had the highest agreement.
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Table 3 Expectations about Taiwan’s future by national identity National identity Majors cross-strait concerns (1–9) Concern for historical background Concern for existing interaction Concern for future development Feeling for future fate (1–6) Threat of PRC Trust in PRC Self-reliance Imagined future nationhood (1–7) (Level of like) Unification choice Independence choice Confederation choice (Level of possible) Unification choice Independence choice Confederation choice
Chinese first (n = 84)
Taiwanese first Taiwanese only Total mean (n = 208) (n = 124) (N = 416)
F value (2, 415)
M1−M2
M1 (SD) 5.98 (2.47) 6.37 (1.92) 7.23 (1.59)
M2 (SD) 5.55 (2.12) 6.51 (1.77) 7.01 (1.81)
M3 (SD) 4.09 (2.60) 5.67 (2.40) 6.50 (2.21)
M (SD) 5.20 (2.45) 6.23 (2.03) 6.90 (1.92)
20.84∗∗∗ 7.16∗∗ 4.36∗
0.42 −0.14 0.21
3.62 (0.94) 3.21 (0.95) 3.47 (0.65)
4.06 (0.80) 2.80 (0.88) 3.72 (0.69)
4.02 (1.05) 1.99 (0.86) 4.38 (0.90)
3.95 (0.92) 2.64 (0.99) 3.86 (0.83)
7.18∗∗ 53.51∗∗∗ 43.91∗∗∗
4.74 (1.55) 4.07 (1.84) 5.26 (1.59)
4.24 (1.61) 4.87 (1.64) 5.33 (1.40)
3.03 (1.98) 5.50 (1.83) 4.38 (1.98)
3.98 (1.83) 4.89 (1.81) 5.03 (1.68)
4.31 (1.86) 2.94 (1.70) 3.99 (1.63)
3.93 (1.62) 3.83 (1.63) 4.42 (1.59)
3.19 (1.67) 4.77 (1.87) 3.78 (1.84)
3.79 (1.73) 3.93 (1.83) 4.14 (1.69)
Scheffe test M2−M3 M1−M3 1.46∗∗∗ 0.85∗∗ 0.51
1.89∗∗∗ 0.70∗ 0.73∗
−0.43∗∗ 0.41∗∗ −0.24∗
0.040 0.81∗∗∗ −0.66∗∗∗
−0.39∗ 1.22∗∗∗ −0.90∗∗∗
29.29∗∗∗ 16.79∗∗∗ 14.13∗∗∗
0.503 −0.80∗∗ −0.07
1.20∗∗∗ −0.63∗∗∗ 0.95∗∗
1.71∗∗∗ −1.43∗∗∗ −0.88∗∗
12.56∗∗∗ 28.97∗∗∗ 5.98∗∗
0.382 −0.887∗∗∗ −0.43
0.74∗∗∗ −0.95∗∗ 0.63∗∗
1.12∗∗∗ −1.83∗∗∗ 0.21
Note. the number in parenthesis of the first column means the range of score. M = mean, SD = standard deviation.∗ p < .001. L.-L. Huang
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Is the Third Way Possible? In terms of the imagined future nationhood, the results indicate a preference toward the third way of confederation. Table 3 shows that the confederation is the most popular overall choice followed by the preference for independence then unification (M = 5.03, 4.89, and 3.98). In the text of the survey story, confederation constructs a bigger umbrella that would include Chinese societies, such as much of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and benefit these different societies on equal basis. It also seems to be a win–win situation for Taiwan and Mainland China relations, because both of them will share the resources in culture and economy and together achieve a prominent Chinese culture. However, survey results reflect slight pessimism about the possibility of realizing any imaged nationhood. Mean scores on the possibility of imagined nationhood were 4.14, 3.93, and 3.79 (4 = neutral) for confederation, independence, and unification, respectively.
Conclusion The dilemma of national identity that Taiwan is facing now is rooted in Taiwan’s geohistorical context and contemporary cross-strait relations. After the development of democracy and two peaceful transitions of government, issues relevant to conflict and peace in Taiwan seem to break away from colonial occupation, authoritarian governance, and interethnic oppression. What is impacting Taiwan society today is more a matter of national identity and less a matter of ethnic identity. National identity may be conceptualized as both prospective and retrospective, which means that national identities are shaped not only by the interpretation of historical events, but also by contrasting perspectives on future nationhood. Many people in Taiwan are trying to figure out how to build their own nation, especially since they have the right to directly vote for their president. Since the 1980s, Taiwanese national consciousness supporters have asserted that collective identity is based on loving of Taiwan as a place with its own voice. But now, as research demonstrates, there exist opposite and polarized expectations for the future (independence vs. unification with China), national identity (Chinese first identity vs. Taiwanese only identity), political party support (deep blue vs. deep green), and opinions on intertwined social issues in Taiwan. Long-lasting and wide-spreading antagonisms have resulted in the mistrust between the polarized groups. Most people in Taiwan regard Taiwan as small and beautiful and emphasize Taiwanese collective self-esteem. But we remain stuck in an approach-avoidance conflict and swing on various political, cultural, and economic issues because of different ideologies of national identity. The political standoff between DDP and KMT ended when the KMT regained the presidency and increased its majority in the legislature in the 2008 presidential and legislative elections. Political studies show that most people in Taiwan prefer not to advocate independence but retain the status quo (NCCU, 2008), because they are afraid of China and its missiles, military attacks, and anti-separation law. Economically, Taiwanese
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businessmen have built tight relations with China but feel threatened by the economic ascendance of China. Culturally, most people admit that they share blood and culture with China, but Taiwanese also seek their current modern cultures of freedom, openness, and autonomy. Militarily, China uses the threat of missiles against Taiwan to deter the Taiwanese people from seeking independence. Legally, China established an anti-separation law to forbid Taiwan independence and obstruct Taiwanese from engaging in international activities. These two legal moves increase the psychological alienation and hostility between cross-straits. In short, the issues of conflict and peace in Taiwan interweave intrastate and interstate conflict. Although Taiwan and Mainland China share similar history, culture, and language, they have been separated for about 60 years and have experienced their own new local histories. For example, Taiwan has marked its first peaceful transition of political power through democratic means in the history of Chinese governance and has become a new democracy. On the other hand, Mainland China is undergoing its economic reform and rises to be a great nation with authoritarian power. Each government is now undergoing different historical processes and may be viable partners in the creation of a new Chinese history. Taiwan actually needs to be part of the global village, while Mainland China desires genuine respect from all over the world. Nevertheless today, Taiwan remains an international orphan, because it is diplomatically ignored and stripped of legitimate identity internationally due to China’s insistence on a one China policy. Results of study 2 illustrates that the third way with a dominant Chinese culture and a political confederation beyond PRC and ROC is accepted by most of people in Taiwan. It seems that a confederation of Chinese societies could be a win–win solution for reducing both the tension between cross-strait and intrastate struggles of Taiwan. In addition, this confederation could be an alliance of Chinese societies united toward superordinate goals of building a brilliant Chinese culture along prosperous economic conditions. The confederation would be free of authoritarian politics and recognize a one Chinese policy rather than a one China policy. On the other hand, Taiwan can continue to build the democracy and serve as an experiment for modernizing old Chinese culture. Chinese culture has lasted for more than 5000 years and has been rich in ancestral intellectual conditions. The way of peacebuilding of cross-strait needs transcendent wisdom and could be a model of peacebuilding for the Asian region and other parts of the world as well.
Appendix: Three Stories for Imagined Future Nationhood Story A: Unification is the choice Taiwan will unify with China and not declare the independence in the future. Taiwan will not become an equalitarian democratic country; instead will become part of the Greater China. Taiwan will become something like a state within the USA.
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Politically, Taiwan government will be a local government. Economically, Taiwan will prosper benefiting from the Great China Economic Community. Culturally, Taiwanese culture will become a subculture of the Chinese culture. After the unification, China will become stronger as to be the top power in the world. Taiwan can contribute the experience of the economic miracle and the high tech; the Mainland has a rich endowment and a long-lasting culture. Two sides can be beneficial to each other; they can share the resources to improve the life. If Taiwan unify with the Mainland, people in Taiwan will gain more than just the dignity; Taiwan will become much better.
Story B: Independence is the choice Taiwan will become an independent country and not unify with the Mainland in the future. In the future, Taiwan will become an egalitarian, democratic independent country. Taiwan will become just some small but advanced country in Europe, like the Netherlands. Politically, Taiwanese people will decide their own affairs; Taiwan will become a democratic island. Economically, Taiwan will develop the fine industry based on high tech. Culturally, Taiwanese culture will prompt the balanced development of the multiculture Taiwan, wither her small area and limited population, will not be a top power in the world. However, people there can enjoy the good life, the high-quality education, the well-built community, and the good quality of life. There is mutual respect between genders, classes, and ethics. Taiwan will be a welfare state with own characteristics. After the independence, people in Taiwan will gain more than just the dignity; Taiwan will become much better.
Story C: Confederation is the choice Taiwan will be independent but not separate from the Mainland in the future. Taiwan will become an equalitarian democratic country and a member of the Great Chinese Confederation.
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The relation between Taiwan and the Mainland will be like the one within the British Commonwealth. Politically, Taiwan will have her sovereignty and treat the Mainland just like a brother. Economically, Taiwan and the Mainland can be beneficial to each other on the equal basis. Culturally, Taiwan and the Mainland can try to find the common ground, in the meantime, each maintains the uniqueness. The Chinese culture will be the dominating one in future’s world. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore will form a confederation. Under the umbrella of the Chinese culture, they will share the resources in culture and economy. They will enrich the Chinese culture together to make it the most dominating one. After joining the federation, people in Taiwan will gain more than just the dignity; Taiwan will become much better.
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Income Gap, Materialism, and Attitude toward the Rich in Developing Countries Fan Zhou
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 24, the Holy Bible The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Marx and Engel in ‘The Communist Manifesto’, Chapter 1
The rich people are usually the target of the public’s attention. Every year Forbes’ list of the World’s richest people gets millions of clicks on the Internet. The wealthy “heroes” become as popular as movie or sport stars. Though many ordinary people admire the rich, they also do not hesitate to send out harsh critiques. In the United States, for example, Dittmar (1992) found that people held mixed feelings toward the rich, entailing both respect and dislike. Although people may regard the rich as successful and smart, they may also see them as arrogant, presumptuous, coldhearted, greedy, and hypocritical. We thought the mixed feelings may be very common in many modernized Western societies. The freedom of speech and media portrayals of the rich may contribute to the public’s relatively less biased evaluation of the rich, because both the philanthropic, prosocial behaviors of the rich as well as the business scandals and inappropriately lavish lifestyles of the rich can be seen. As a result, it is hard for the vast majority to take an extreme evaluation of the rich elite. To the best of our knowledge, the issue of negative feelings toward the rich class has not become a serious problem in many industrialized countries. In developing countries, however, the issue of negative evaluation toward the rich by the vast majority of citizens can be a much more sensitive and critical problem than in developed countries. On the one hand, we can see that many people live in “absolute” poverty and can hardly make ends meet because of the relatively low level of living conditions. It can be supposed that the vast majority may admire the rich even more and be more eager to strive for wealth to improve their living conditions than people in developed societies. On the other hand, the contrast between the rich and the poor can be even more obvious and unbearable in an environment where poverty is common. Because many developing countries suffer from a widening gap between different social stratums (World Economic Forum, 2008) and rampant corruption (Transparency International, 2005), interclass hatred may be exacerbated. C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_15, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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It could be predicted that the attitude of the public toward the rich may be complicated in developing countries. The attitude toward the rich is an important social issue especially in developing countries where the justification for the uneven wealth distribution is more difficult than it is in developed countries. If the public holds a general negative attitude toward the rich, the misunderstanding, bias, or hatred among the different social strata may lead to unrest, riots, or even revolution. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848) thought that interclass conflicts were the very source of history evolution and that violent revolution and deprivation of major private properties (means of production) were necessary measures to establish a communist society. Though the number of believers in Marx’s theory is limited in the present time, the possible widely held negative feelings toward the rich may light up the fire of riot or even violent revolution, just as Marx predicted. This possibility might be higher in developing societies than in developed ones. In fact, after Lenin and his party won the revolution in Russia and established the former USSR, most communist revolutions erupted and achieved success in less developed parts of the world, including China, Cuba, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Typically the revolutionaries in these countries instigated hatred toward the rich “bourgeoisie” and confiscated their private property and tortured or even killed them. Like an old Chinese saying “wood that is very dry is easier to be lighted,” in a social context where negative feelings toward the rich are prevalent, it might be easier for such social unrests to be ignited. Hence it is worthwhile to take time to examine the public’s evaluations of the rich class. In this chapter, we will first analyze possible mechanisms of formation of public opinion toward the rich in developing countries. Then we will present our analyses of the explicit and implicit attitudes toward the rich and our findings from a small-scale study. Finally we will extend our discussion on a broad frame through the lens of interclass relationship and social harmony.
Economic Development and Rise of Materialism in Developing Countries During the last several decades, the world saw economic booms in many developing countries. Actually the economic increases in some developing countries were so vigorous that a new term “BRIC” was created to represent four emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The economic developments might bring about not only improved living condition to the people in these societies, but also transformations in beliefs and values in these societies (e.g., Marx, 1973). Though some scholars believed that values are enduring and static (e.g., Weber, 1958; Huntington, 1993), the empirical evidence from Inglehart and Baker (2000) found many values can change over time, though they admitted that traditions and historical events may have an enduring impact on mainstream norms and values. Modernization shaped not only the physical environment by skyscrapers, supermarkets, and McDonalds in these developing countries, but also people’s values and attitudes. The World Value
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Survey (Inglehart, Basañez, & Moreno, 2004) across 40 societies revealed an interesting finding that economic development may lead to value transformation toward either “materialism” or “post-materialism,” which depended on the economic development level. Based on Maslow’s theory of hierarchical human needs, Inglehart thought that in societies with relative economic scarcity, many people would, ceteris paribus, place strong priority on economic growth as well as safety needs such as “law and order” (materialism) and that in societies with high material affluence, people would start to give high priority to individual improvement, freedom, human rights, and environment protection (post-materialism). Inglehart’s study indicated that for less developed countries where individual incomes were low, economic development usually led to endorsement of materialistic values. It can be explained that, unlike the developed world where people can be more or less liberated from the stress of basic acquisitive and materialistic needs, people in “developing” countries usually pay more attention to materialistic pursuits that could be further activated by the surrounding rapid economic development. Therefore, economic development in these developing countries would usually turn the mainstream norms and values toward materialism instead of post-materialism (Inglehart, 1997). The emerging economy of China may be the best case to show the relationship between economic development and value transformation. For more than half a century, China suffered from wars, invasions, revolutions, “class struggles,” and mass riots. Chinese people lived in extreme poverty until 30 years ago when former leader Deng Xiaoping (1983) was determined to put an end to “class struggles” and adopt new policies to stimulate economic development. The economic reform has been highly successful, resulting in rapid economic growth and improving living standards for the people. According to the data released by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (2005), the annual growth rate of China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 9.5% on average from 1980 to 2004. The rapid economic development has also led to a vast transformation in norms and values. Traditional values were taken over by materialistic ones, just as described by Inglehart’s (1997) modernization theory. Chinese people tend to give money a high priority compared to other goals in the past three decades. Forty-two percent of Chinese participants included in the World Value Survey endorsed materialism, giving China a rank of 19 among 79 societies (Inglehart et al., 2004). The materialistic pursuits of the public can be manifested in many ways. Many people are very concerned about their peers’ income, and the most popular greeting on a New Year’s day is “Gongxi Facai (may you make more money).” And successful entrepreneurs and billionaires can elicit vast attention, on TV programs or campus speeches. Chinese traditional values emphasized the other party’s personality and character in marriage preference. However, Zhong (2003) reviewed studies on the change of marriage preference in the last decade and found that more and more girls put income as the first priority in recent years than before. The impact of modernization on value can even be manifested by some basic behaviors. Chinese traditional etiquette regulates people to walk slowly and elegantly. However, many educated “white collar workers” walk fast to save more time on working. Clearly, Inglehart’s modernization theory predicted the trend of rising materialistic values in China, the
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world’s largest developing country with a rapidly swelling economy, and in some ways, the preferences and behaviors of Chinese people are consistent with these values. If Chinese people have materialistic values and think that making money and becoming rich is of great importance, will they abandon the idea of “class struggle” and have a positive attitude toward the rich few? We thought that it may be a common phenomenon that in developing societies many people want to become as rich as possible because joining the rich club will enable them to fulfill their materialistic pursuits. So can it be inferred that such a motive will make the public hold a positive attitude toward the rich because they want to become one of them? We think such an inference is too simplistic, and further analysis will reveal that the public may also have enough reasons to dislike the rich.
Income Gap, Corruption, and Negative Feeling Toward the Rich It is well known that there is a huge gap that separates the few industrialized countries from the vast majority of less developed ones. While the inter-national gap on income is huge, the intra-national gap between the rich few and the vast majority within many of these developing countries is by no means smaller. According to the report of the World Bank (2005), the Gini index of the developing countries was higher than that of industrialized countries, which indicated that the developing world may have a larger income gap between the wealthy and the poor than developed societies. While the gap between the rich and the poor is very large in many developing countries, it is widening rapidly in some countries where there is rapid economic development. In China, the Gini index soared from 0.29 to 0.43 in the past two decades as the GDP average increased by 9.8% annually. China has seen an incredible change in wealth distribution, turning from a more or less evenly distributed “communal” country into a distributed “capitalist” country with a wide income gap between rich and poor. China has entered the list of countries with serious imparity of wealth distribution, compared to 0.61 in Brazil and 0.38 in India. While the poorest 20% of the Chinese people shared less than 5% of gross domestic income, the richest 20% had more than 45% (United Nation’s report of Human Development, 2003). A vivid illustration of this phenomenon was that while the 200 richest persons in China had amassed 79 to over 4,000 million US dollars of personal assets (Forbes’ Ranking of the Richest in China, 2005), over 200 million people had less than 1 dollar per day to spend (UN, 2003). Such a huge gap in wealth between the rich few and the vast majority may cause the public to complain and hate the rich. Besides the widening gap between the rich few and the vast majority, in many developing countries corruption is a serious problem. The annual report on global corruption (Transparency International, 2005) contains a map that shows the seriousness of corruption around the world, with darker color indicating more serious corruption. The curve along the dark zones (societies with serious corruption) and
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light zones (societies with less corruption) is almost perfectly identical to the curve that separates the industrialized powers from the developing world. In a society where suspicion of corruption is high, the rich are usually believed to be involved with those corrupted officials in government who build up their wealth through illegal means. In China the public’s suspicion of corruption is so intense that some people thought no less than nine out of every 10 officials have ever embezzled public funds or accepted bribes (“Shiguan Jiutan”). Many businessmen were thought to gain big money from illegal manipulations with corrupted officials. Consequently, a number of people may think that the inequality of wealth distribution could not be attributed to individual diligence, intelligence, or other acceptable qualities. Hence the feeling of unfairness may be easily provoked in this situation when both the inequality of distribution is high and acceptable excuses cannot be found. Therefore, it can be predicted that the public may have strong reasons to hold negative feelings toward the rich in these developing countries.
Dissociation of Implicit and Explicit Attitudes Toward the Rich The phenomenon of strong materialism together with huge inequality on wealth distribution and corruption can be found in many developing societies, especially in those experiencing substantial economic progress. Within these societies, the issue of attitude toward the rich class can be very complicated. On the one hand, many individuals may admire the rich and try their best to become one of the rich few. On the other hand, a number of people tend to think that the wealth distribution is not fair and many rich people acquire their wealth through illegal methods. All in all, will people in developing societies hold a gross positive or a negative evaluation toward the rich in their society? The question is not as simple as it may seem to be. Take China for example, many scholars thought that the public hold negative feelings toward the rich because of wide inequality and suspicion of corruption. There have been many debates on the issue of “Chou Fu” (animosity toward the rich) in China in the mass media. Some surveys found that individuals indicated a negative attitude toward the rich (e.g., Shao, 2004). Though we cannot find direct support to the best of our knowledge for other developing countries, some available empirical studies support this view. In the multicultural study on social axiom (“general, context-free beliefs that people hold as their socialization experiences”) across 41 societies, Leung and Bond (2004) found that there was a negative correlation (r = –0.39) between GDP per capita (by purchase power parity) and social cynicism, a general measure of negative beliefs about human nature, including items to measure distrust and negative feelings toward the rich such as “the various social institutions in society are biased towards the rich.” The negative correlation indicated that the lower the level of the economy, the higher the level of cynicism. It should be mentioned that social cynicism was a broad negative view of human nature with distrust toward the wealthy and power elite. However, it can be expected that any negative attitude specifically
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toward the rich could be magnified through this general negative lens. Hence the negative attitude toward the rich might be negatively correlated with economic development level. If we assume that the overall average attitude toward the rich across all cultures is neutral, it may be inferred that people might hold negative attitudes in many developing countries. But things are different for attitudes toward the rich when considering high materialism in developing societies. The correlation between GDP per capital (with purchase power parity) and materialism was significantly negative (r = –0.53, p < 0.01) across 40 societies. If it can be concluded that many people in developing countries have materialistic pursuit as a high priority and are eager to enter the rich club, especially in those countries with rapid economic development, then it might be inferred that people might hold positive feelings toward the rich because they want to be one of them. In China, people’s ambition to be rich is so obvious that a popular adage describes people’s differentiated behaviors toward the rich and the poor, “rejecting the poor while greeting the rich” (Xianpin Aifu). In daily life it can be seen that many people behave positively toward the rich while responding negatively to the poor. If attitude can be automatically adjusted to be consistent with behavior, it can be inferred that people should hold a positive attitude toward the rich in accordance with their behaviors. From the analysis above, a contradiction can be found concerning attitudes toward the rich. From the direct and indirect empirical evidence, we can expect to find the public has a negative attitude toward the rich. However, the prevalent behaviors of the public toward the rich and the endorsement for materialism may imply that people may hold quite positive feelings toward the rich in developing societies where the desire to become rich is obviously very strong. We propose to resolve this inconsistency by using the unified theory of implicit social cognition (Greenwald et al., 2002). This theory makes a distinction between explicit attitudes, which are usually measured by questionnaires and are readily accessible cognitively, and implicit attitudes, which are introspectively unidentified or inaccurately identified (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). As for the formation of explicit and implicit attitudes, some scholars proposed a theory that explicit attitudes are primarily based on salient cognitions, whereas implicit attitudes might be based on deepseated affect (Rudman, 2004). Therefore, the negative explicit attitude toward the rich might be formed by the accumulated cognitions of negatively evaluative information toward the rich people, including a huge income gap and corruption that constantly appeared in newspapers and TV programs, while the positive implicit attitude toward the rich could be attributed to deep-seated affect, motivation, and desire that can be manifested by admiration and aspiration to be rich. This idea seems to be odd at first because, as we know, inconsistency among cognitions will cause stress and therefore will not last long, according to Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory (1957). But implicit attitudes can be dissociated from explicit attitudes. In fact, congruity of beliefs may be typically maintained at the implicit level, and implicit attitudes can contradict explicit attitudes toward the same target without causing any cognitive dissonance. Take the dissociation between explicit and implicit attitudes toward some specific ethnic groups (e.g., African Americans,
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women) for example. Surveys have found that many participants showed no negative explicit stereotypes on questionnaires. However, they indicated cognitive and behavioral averseness toward the target minority group, which clearly suggested that these participants actually may hold negative stereotypes. Based on this theory, we predicted that on the implicit level, Chinese subjects should show a positive attitude toward the rich, while on the explicit level they would hold a negative evaluation of the rich. We (Zhou & Wang, 2007) carried out a study to test this prediction in China. Because income gap issue is sensitive in China and it was not possible for a large-scale survey to be conducted outside campus without a government permit, we completed the study with college students. Our final sample consisted of 59 valid cases. Implicit attitude is usually measured by comparing the strength of associations between attitude targets and valence. Greenwald, McGhee and Schwartz (1998) designed the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to measure implicit attitude, stereotype, and self-esteem. Participants were asked to discriminate words or pictures on a computer screen, and their reaction latencies were recorded. Implicit attitude was measured by the difference of reaction latencies that indicated the relative association strength between target and valences. Like the IAT, the Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT, Nosek & Banaji, 2001) also measured the relative strength of association between target and valence attributes, while replacing two different key responses by responding to only targets (“go”) and ignoring distractors (“no-go”). In our study, we used the paper-and-pencil version of the GNAT. In this test, participants were required to cross off some words in a sheet as quickly as possible, according to categorizing requirements. Four categories of words, the rich/poor (targets) and the good/bad attributes, were used. The words for the rich target were 10 words representing rich persons (e.g., rich people, millionaires, upper class); the words for the poor involved 10 words representing the poor (e.g., the poor, the public, lower class). The attributes consisted of 40 adjectives: 20 positive ones (e.g., good, kind, intelligent) and 20 negative ones (e.g., evil, stupid, treacherous). The words were randomized in a sheet, and participants were asked to cross off as many words as possible that matched the requirement in a given period of time (12 seconds). In most cases, about one-third or half of the words on the sheet could be completed, but it was not possible to complete all the words in this period. After finishing one sheet, they were asked to turn to the next page for the second trial, and a total of four trials were involved. The first two trials were practice trials to familiarize the participants with the task. In the first trial, words representing the rich and the poor were presented on a sheet and participants were asked to cross off the words that represented the rich. In the second trial, participants were asked to cross off positive adjectives that were mixed with negative ones. The third trial asked the participants to cross off the words for the rich and positive attributes among a random list of words for both targets and both types of attributes. The fourth trial asked participants to cross off the words for the rich and negative attributes in a random list of both targets and both types of attributes. The first two trials were practice, while the last two trials were experiment trials. The difference in the performance between the two experiment trials, which was indicated by the accuracy of the crossing-off
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performance, reflected the relative strength of association between the concept of the rich and the evaluative attributes. Because the attitude toward the rich was quite a clear and simple concept, we adopted a one-item measure to check explicit attitude toward the rich, “what do you think of wealthy people in general?” on a five-point scale from 1 “very bad ” to 5 “very good.” The results supported our prediction. The experiment indicated people reacted to stimuli with a much larger correct rate when the words representing the rich were responded to together with positive evaluation words than when these words were required to be responded together with negative evaluation words. The difference in the performance indicated that participants may exhibit a stronger association between rich and positive evaluations even when they might not notice it. However, at the same time we found that these participants also endorsed clearly a negative evaluation of the rich on the one-item measure. The implicit and explicit attitudes showed no correlation, suggesting that the implicit attitude toward the rich was dissociated from the explicit attitude.
Income Gaps, Interclass Conflicts, and Social Unrest We thought that attitudes toward the wealthy class could be an important issue in many developing societies. Negative feelings toward the rich may turn into hatred and could be dangerous especially in developing countries where the percentage of the rich and middle class in relation to the whole population is usually small. For example, though hostility toward the Jews can be attributed to many religious, psychological, and political reasons, some people thought that anti-Semitism may have something to do with the economic advantage of Jewish people in some European countries (e.g., Poliakov, 2003). The class hatred may lead to interclass conflicts, social unrest, riots, or even violent revolution. In Chinese history, “evenly and fairly distributing wealth” has been a popular slogan in instigating people’s participation in almost every violent revolution. Most recently, the Chinese Communist Party lured millions of peasants without farms or with very small farms to join their army to overthrow the government of the time by encouraging them to drive away their landlords and occupy and distribute their land. Karl Marx (1948) believed that an individual’s social position was determined by his or her role in the production process, which depended on the “ownership of means of production” such as factories, stores, or farms. He also thought that society members could be roughly divided into two adverse classes, the rich capitalists (also know as “bourgeoisie”) and the poor workers (also known as “proletariat”). Marxists believed that the fundamental interests of the two great classes were in opposition to one another and that class conflict and violent revolution was the only solution for the proletariat to finally liberate themselves from poverty. Such ideology influenced a number of revolutionaries and violent revolutions in the last part of the 20th century. In many countries, the violent actions toward the rich enemy class were glorified. For example, in the modern history of China, Mao (former leader
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of the Chinese Communist Party) excessively praised the abusive treatment of landlords during the violent revolution in 1920s. And the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia even practiced their motto “to keep you is no benefit, and to destroy you is no loss” and killed innocent class enemy members, including landlords, capitalists, and intellectuals. Although Marxism’s influence may be limited to within only some nations, the class consciousness, the naïve thought of class struggle, and the glorification of violence toward the class enemy may be quite epidemic in many developing societies. Sometimes the resentment toward the rich “enemy” class and other forms of stereotypes have overlapped and caused violent reactions toward specific ethnic groups. Though our study was conducted in China, the explicitly negative attitude toward the rich could be found in many developing countries. In the United Nation’s human development report, many developing countries have a high inequality index of income. And in many of these developing countries, corruption is also a big problem. Therefore, we inferred that in developing countries, explicit negative attitudes toward the rich could be prevalent and such negative feeling may also contribute to social unrest. Many people believe that to be just is to be equal. Rawls (1999) in his book A Theory of Justice proposed two principles of justice. In the first principle, Rawls claimed that “each person is to have equal right to the most extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar scheme of liberties to others.” The egalitarian idea was usually so strong in many places that many people usually expected a justification when the principle of equality was violated. For example, in the workplace, disparity in salaries usually needs to be justified by formal performance evaluations. Wealth distribution cannot, indefinitely, escape from people’s attention and judgment. Too large a gap in wealth distribution may cause stress, resentment, and anger, especially when the inequality cannot be justified. According to Marx’s theory, interclass conflict is inevitable, and these conflicts push the wheels of history forward. However, violence and blood are usually thought to be too heavy a cost for such “progresses.” Things might not be as Karl Marx predicted. Actually, many of Marx’s predictions failed to be fulfilled. Our research on the explicit/implicit attitude toward the rich actually found not only negative attitudes toward the rich on the explicit level, but also a positive attitude on the implicit level. Behind the explicit endorsement of negative evaluation of the rich, people showed their admiration for the rich. Will such an implicit positive attitude make any difference to an individual’s behavior toward the rich? For example, could it reduce any possible abusive behavior due to endorsement of negative feeling toward the rich? It should be confessed that there is no direct empirical evidence to provide definite answers to these questions. However, some studies on implicit attitudes, stereotypes, and self-esteem may show us some clues. In a study on the behavioral consequence of implicit self-esteem, Spalding and Hardin (1999) found that implicit self-esteem, not explicit self-esteem, predicted participants’ apparent anxiety during a self-relevant interview. The explicit self-esteem, however, predicted
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self-judgment of anxiety instead. Other studies have also confirmed predictive validity for implicit stereotype measures, indicating that implicit attitudes influenced individual’s behaviors. Though a more complicated model of the effect of implicit attitude has been proposed (e.g., Perugini, 2005), implicit attitude is thought to be associated with spontaneous behavior, whereas explicit attitude is associated with deliberative behaviors. Bargh’s theorization on automaticity mentioned four criteria for the difference between automatic and controlled process: intention, awareness, efficiency, and control (1994), though the classification of these two categories are not clear cut. Therefore, it is highly possible that a positive attitude toward the rich may cause spontaneous hospitable behaviors toward the rich, which may not ever be noticed. Hence we argued that the positive implicit attitudes may help to relieve resentment toward the rich when individuals’ spontaneous behaviors have sufficient opportunity to be activated. Because the implicit attitude is relatively dissociated from explicit attitude, the negative attitude could hardly inhibit the spontaneous hospitable behaviors toward the rich. The well-intentioned behaviors may accumulate to the degree so that the individual starts to question the source of his or her explicit attitude and may take a more unbiased view. When the dialectic, balanced evaluation replaced bigoted points of view in more and more people, it is highly possible that the effect of negative feelings toward the rich class can be reduced. Unfortunately, however, in many societies especially in developing countries, we could see that the segregation between the rich and the vast majority is so serious that it is almost impossible for any well-intentioned behaviors to be conducted. Because of the huge income gap between the rich and the poor and the low average living conditions in many developing countries, the rich usually want to be segregated from the public to safeguard their property from theft or robbery. Such isolation may split the society and filter opportunities to receive well-intentioned treatment. Isolation sometimes leads to indifference toward other people’s interests and feelings. It also remains a difficult problem to integrate and harmonize different social strata so as to promote communication and mutual understanding. Though the study on implicit and explicit attitudes toward the rich was conducted in China and we built our argument mainly on evidence and analyses of China, the attitudes toward the rich may be quite similar to that of China in many developing countries. The theory on evolution of inequality by Lenski and Nolan (1984) depicted the changing trajectory of inequality during the course of social evolution. Inequalities are minimal in hunting and gathering societies, increase after the adoption of plant cultivation, peak in mature agricultural societies (characterized by using plows and other sophisticated tools) and during the early phase of industrialization, and decline in mature, highly industrialized societies. Many developing countries are in the stage of early industrialization, and therefore, it can be predicted that the inequality may also be a serious problem in other less developed societies. During the process of industrialization in many less developed countries, the widening gap between the rich and the poor and its negative consequences may be exacerbated if the government’s policy cannot alleviate the unevenness of the distribution of wealth accumulation.
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Extreme disparity of wealth distribution in developing countries may lead to the poor being deprived of their basic human needs. Montiel distinguished two types of violence; “Structural violence” is an implicit form of violence that, through political and economic systems, leads to slow death by removing basic human needs fulfillment (Montiel, 2003). Income inequities in many developing countries could be regarded as a serious threat to social harmony because limited resources together with serious unevenness of distribution may push many people to the edge of starvation. However, it should be admitted that explicit hatred of the rich may be more salient in those cultures where egalitarian values are widespread. Egalitarian values used to be highly valued in many eastern Asian cultures that had been influenced by Confucianism, which emphasized the even distribution of wealth (e.g., Confucius said “A ruler should worry about the disparity, but not poverty” and the Gini index in many countries of this region were usually not very high: 0.25 in Japan and 0.36 in South Korea). Therefore, we admitted that it is quite possible that negative attitudes toward the rich may also vary depending on how traditional values differ. This chapter considers income inequality and its consequence on interclass attitudes in developing countries, with China as the case study. Though similar economic development level and inequality in wealth distribution may support our extrapolation that many developing countries may face similar problem of negative attitudes toward the rich on an explicit level while having a positive attitude on the implicit level, it may still be possible that our analysis based on findings in China might not be generalizable to other developing countries, especially where egalitarian value is very low or economic development is not salient or static. Future study needs to differentiate the effect of culture and modernization on interclass attitude and to present direct evidence on the implications of interclass attitude and social harmony.
References Bargh, J. A. (1994). The four horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, intention, efficiency, and control in social cognition. In R. S. Wyer, Jr., & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition, Vol. 1: Basic processes (2nd ed., pp. 1–40). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Deng, X. (1983). Selected works of Deng Xiaoping. Beijing: People’s Press (in Chinese). Dittmar, H. (1992). Perceived material wealth and first impression. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 379–391. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press: Stanford, CA. Forbes Co. (2005). Forbes’ special report of 400 richest Chinese. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/74/Rank_1.html Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitude, self-esteem and stereotype. Psychological Review, 102, 4–27. Greenwald, A. G., Banaji, M. R., Rudman, L. A., Farnham, S. D., Nosek, B. A., & Mellott, D. S. (2002). A unified theory of implicit attitudes, stereotypes, self-esteem, and self-concept. Psychological Review, 109, 3–25. Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480. Huntington, S. P. (1993). The clash of civilizations? Foreign Affairs, 72, 22–49.
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Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and post-modernization: Cultural, economic and political change in 43 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R., & Baker, W. E. (2000). Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65, 19–51. Inglehart, R., Basañez, M., & Moreno, A. (2004). Human values and beliefs: A cross-cultural sourcebook. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Lenski, G., & Nolan, P. D. (1984). Trajectories of development: A test of ecological-evolutionary theory. Social Forces, 63, 1–23. Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (2004). Social axioms: A model for social beliefs in multi-cultural perspective. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 119–197. Marx, K. (1973). Foundations of the critique of political economy. New York: Vintage Books. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). The communist manifesto. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Montiel, C. J. (2003). Peace psychology in Asia. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9, 195–218. National Bureau of Statistics of China. (2005). Report of gross domestic products. Retrieved from http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/ndsj/2005/html/C0301C.xls Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2001). The go/no-go association task. Social Cognition, 19, 625–664. Perugini, M. (2005). Predictive models of implicit and explicit attitudes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 29–45. Poliakov, L. (2003). The history of anti-semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner. University of Pennsylvania: Philadelphia. Rawls, J. (1999). A theory of justice( revised edition). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Rudman, L. A. (2004). Sources of implicit attitude. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 79–82. Shao, Y. L. (2004). Survey on negative attitudes towards the rich among college students in China. Youth & Juvenile Study, 2, 39–41. (in Chinese). Spalding, L. R., & Hardin, C. D. (1999). Behavioral consequence of individual differences in implicit and explicit self-esteem. Psychological Science, 10, 535–539. Transparency International. (2005). Corruption perception index 2005. Retrieved from http:// www.transperancy.org/ policy_and_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2005 United Nations Development Programme. (2003). Human development report 2002. New York: Oxford University Press. Weber, M. (1958). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. (translated by T. Parsons). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. World Bank. (2005). World development indicators. Retrieved from http://devdata.worldbank.org/ wdi2005/Table2_7.htm. Zhong, D. P. (2003). Review of studies on the change of mating preference in last decade. Youth Study, 2, 13–18. (in Chinese). Zhou, F., & Wang, D. (2007). Dissociation between implicit and explicit attitude towards the rich in a developing country: the case of China. Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, 35, 295–302.
Part V
Future of Peace Psychology in Asia
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How Asia Can Contribute to World Peace Psychology: Creating a Dignified and Peaceful World by Employing Unity in Diversity Evelin Lindner
Kaku (2005), a renowned physicist born in California of Asian background, writes: “The generation now alive is perhaps the most important generation of humans ever to walk the Earth. Unlike previous generations, we hold in our hands the future destiny of our species, whether we soar into fulfilling our promise as a type I civilization (meaning a civilization that succeeds in building a socially and ecologically sustainable world) or fall into the abyss of chaos, pollution, and war” (p. 361). Peace psychology stands at the very center of the formidable task that Kaku describes for humankind, and it carries an enormous responsibility at this crucial historical moment. What makes peace psychology so important is that it bridges all levels, from the innermost psyche of each individual at the micro-level to the large-scale processes at the highest global macro-level. Christie (2006) explains how peace psychology is distinguished from neighboring fields (e.g., social psychology) through its frequent reference to the systemic and cultural origins of violent episodes. Christie lays out the contemporary scope of peace psychology as follows: “In particular, three themes are emerging in post-Cold War peace psychology: (1) greater sensitivity to geohistorical context, (2) a more differentiated perspective on the meanings and types of violence and peace, and (3) a systems view of the nature of violence and peace” (p. 3). This book addresses all three of Christie’s themes. Through placing Asia in the spotlight, this book widens the geohistorical lens of peace psychology and makes it more differentiated and globally inclusive, since Asia provides greater diversity (a more differentiated view) for peace psychology. Thus, this book promotes a higher level of global unity within the field of peace psychology and helps it develop improved systemic views of the nature of violence and peace. What peace psychology in Asia brings to the table is summarized by Montiel (2003) as a focus on active nonviolent political transformation, interethnic peacebuilding processes, social voice and identity, and culture-sensitive peacemaking. This chapter is entitled “How Asia Can Contribute to World Peace Psychology.” It starts from the stipulation that, simplified, there are two reasons for why Eastern approaches are increasingly in demand: The first reason relates to Kaku’s warning that humankind risks falling into the abyss of chaos, pollution, and war: the Earth is
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finite, and interlocking issues of population, environment, and development cause humanity to approach a crisis point. Nobody today can overlook the signs on the wall, from a global financial crisis to a global climate, energy, and food crisis. However, and this is the second reason, the solutions that the “West” has promoted so far may be rather insufficient and may fail to save humankind from decline – merely continuing with maximizing short-term financial gains through long-term destruction of social and ecological systems is not sustainable. This is the dilemma of our time: a dire situation facing insufficient awareness and responses.
Use of a Large-Scale Geohistorical Lens A large-scale geohistorical lens is used in this chapter that encompasses the entire history of the species Homo sapiens (Lindner, 2006). This lens helps highlight deep commonalities that all humankind shares, commonalities that would otherwise remain unseen and unappreciated. This lens also helps pinpoint where the Asian experience is different and where it is similar to the rest of the world. This chapter uses furthermore a Weberian ideal-type approach that differentiates levels of abstractions (Coser, 1977). It distills and highlights the core essence of issues – not denying the significance of complex details, but putting less emphasis on them. By using this approach, the problem of the West – to distill the core essence of the problem and formulate it starkly – is the misconception that dualism is a feasible ontological orientation for our contemporary world and that it can and ought to be maximized. This problem is increasingly being recognized. Ever louder voices decry the fall of humanity from nonduality into dualism, nihilism, and overshoot (exploitation) (Bender, 2003). Recent forms of ecopsychology and transpersonal ecology, for example, hold that the dualistic split between planet and self must be healed (Winter, 1996). The Dualism-Manichaeism-Armageddon syndrome (DMA) (Galtung, Jacobsen, Brand-Jacobsen, & Tschudi, 2000) is a label that summarizes how creating and firing up Manichaean self/other and good/evil dualisms prepare people for violence and convinces them that wars are worth fighting. How could dualism ever become dominant, and what can be done to change this state of affairs? The analysis laid out in this chapter begins roughly 100,000 years ago, in line with the conceptualization of human history by anthropologist William Ury (1999), who describes three major types of society: simple hunter-gatherers, complex agriculturists, and the current knowledge society. Homo sapiens populated planet Earth, starting out in Africa, throughout the first 90% of human history as hunter-gatherers, always moving on to the next valley of abundant wild food. However, circa 10,000 years ago, this era ended – what anthropologists call circumscription (Latin circum means “around,” and scribere means “to write,” with circumscription meaning “limitation,” “enclosure,” or “confinement”). Humans had populated planet Earth, or at least its easily accessible habitat,
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to the extent that the next valley was already inhabited and used by other humans. Humankind had to learn to make do with the land under their feet. Intensification, or agriculture, was Homo sapien’s main adaptation (pastoralism another), which, until very recently, dominated the planet almost everywhere. (The hunter-gatherer communities still around today only offer glimpses into the lives of their forefathers prior to 10,000 years ago – the more they are affected by circumscription, the less their lives resemble the designs of the past.) Asia was as impacted by these large-scale transformations as were other parts of the world. Important empires with feudal systems based on agriculture evolved also in Asia – from China to Japan or Korea. In her book The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, Eisler (1987) explains in great detail how otherwise widely divergent societies, from the Japan of the Samurai to the Aztecs of Meso America, were characterized during this era by very similar agriculture-based hierarchies of domination and a rigidly male-dominant “strong-man” rule, both in the family and the state. Hierarchies of domination were maintained by a high degree of institutionalized or socially accepted violence, ranging from wife and child beating within the family to aggressive warfare on the larger tribal or national level. I call the past 10,000 years the “era of ranked honor” in human history, superseding the earlier “era of pristine pride.” Almost everywhere on the globe, the untouched egalitarian pristine pride of early hunter-gatherers was pressed into social and societal structures of ranked honor. Human value and worthiness became ranked – higher beings ruled over lower beings. This system was regarded as a divinely ordained and honorable order. Even though important religions around the world have always entailed significant ideals of equality (Buddhism has a claim for equal dignity, as has New Testament Christianity, Islam, the Sikh religion, and so forth), it seems that these ideals were pushed into the background by the overall hierarchical structures of their larger social and societal environments throughout the era of ranked honor. The rise of dualism has its anchoring in agriculture or, more precisely, in certain features of it. Dualism feeds on and maximizes the win–lose frame and the security dilemma that are introduced when the possession of land is the resource of livelihood. With the onset of agriculture, the resource of livelihood transmuted from being abundant (i.e., wild food) to limited (i.e., land), creating a malign win– lose logic from which nobody could flee. Fear to have one’s land taken away became definitorial. International relations theory uses the term security dilemma to describe how arms races and war were almost inevitable in this atmosphere of fear of attack from outside one’s community. (The term “security dilemma” was coined by Herz (1950), to explain why states that have no intention to harm one another may still end up in competition and war.) In such a situation, the dualism of “we, the in group, have to stand up against you, the outgroups” finds fertile ground. Small elites learned how to preside over in-groups – in the service of keeping out-groups out or conquering them – while in-groups, comprising the majority of the population, learned how to bow and kowtow to their superiors. Underlings who succeeded in toppling their masters only replaced them, keeping the hierarchical system intact. Even though the ways in
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which these cultures of domination/submission evolved varied, the core concept of ranking human worthiness was as definitorial in most of Asia as elsewhere. The West learned to maximize dualism particularly ruthlessly and, as colonizers, conquered the world and used up its resources (long before countries such as China and India followed suit). If China had continued with the immense naval expeditions that the Ming Dynasty sponsored between 1405 and 1433, long before Europe was even near Chinese levels of development, China may have colonized the world and foreclosed later humiliation at the hands of the West. It may be a mere historical accident that Chinese did not become a lingua franca of the world already many centuries ago. And if planet Earth had a larger size, the colonizing campaigns of the past might still be ongoing. However, Earth’s limits are being reached yet again, as profoundly transformational, globally and universally, as 10,000 years ago. When there are no “new territories” left to be subdued, one has to learn to live with what one has. The emerging reality and awareness of one single interdependent world represents a shift that is ground shattering. “For the first time since the origin of our species, humanity is in touch with itself” (Ury, 1999, p. 17). Ury (1999) discusses how this shift also brings to the fore a new resource for livelihood, namely knowledge, to increasingly replace dependency on land. This opens space for what I call the “era of equality in dignity.” Friedman (2005) describes how global interdependence contributes to making the world flatter, thus representing a push not just for unity, but also for the human rights ideal of equality in rights and dignity. However, there is one condition: humankind must grasp this chance and not gamble it away. This chapter – indeed, the entire book – contributes to explaining this challenge.
A Historical Shift Toward Global Interdependence Is Presently Unfolding In a single interdependent world, the maximization of dualism that could bring “victory” during the past 10,000 years turns into a recipe for collective demise. Global challenges require global cooperation to be solved – today’s challenges are no longer “enemies” over which “victories” can be won. Ecological sustainability for human life on Earth is not achievable through mistaking finite resources to be limitless and everybody racing to be “victorious” in exploiting them, either out of poverty or to maximize profit. Dualistic competitive approaches merely intensify the malignity of the win–lose nature of finiteness. Nor can social sustainability be achieved through local “victories” – from poverty to global terrorism, or mafia criminality, nothing can be tackled locally alone. In short, holding a fragmented human family together, and forging a new culture of global cooperation, presents itself as the only strategy left to attain security and peace. Global interdependence, a historically entirely novel condition, thus entails a call to solve challenges in new ways; however, it also opens space for the chance to do so, a chance that can and must be grasped by humankind: in an interdependent world,
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with a growing significance of knowledge as basis for livelihood, opportunities arise for nondualistic win–win approaches. However, even though this new space represents a push for new solutions, these solutions do not realize themselves automatically and without human intervention. They need to be proactively implemented. Humankind must purposely strive for unity and cooperation (no longer division and confrontation) in an atmosphere of equal dignity (no longer unequal ranked honor, no longer the subjugation of people and nature). Human rights represent a suitable normative and legal framework for this new world. Article 1 of the of the Human Rights Declaration states that every human being is born with equal rights and dignity (and ought not be humiliated). Incidentally, the change of the meaning of the verb “to humiliate” in the English language provides a marker for the rise of visibility of the human rights ideal of equal dignity for all: it is documented that in 1757 “to humiliate” had lost its connotation of “to humble” and acquired the new one of “violating dignity” (Miller, 1993, p. 175). The linguistic change of 1757 highlights the ascent of a new kind of uprising, a new script of inclusive systemic change à la Gandhi and Mandela: no longer merely bowing to, or simply confronting or replacing elites, no longer oppressors merely being replaced by new ones (as was done during the past 10,000 years), but the system of domination/submission itself being dismantled. Slavery, apartheid, or traditions such as foot binding have since been abolished. Yet even though the human rights movement around the world has progressed considerably throughout the past decades, there is a caveat, a caveat that relates to humiliation and dualism. As soon as human rights gain visibility, the phenomenon of humiliation (as act, feeling, and relational and institutional process) plays not only a positive role, but also a negative one. The negative impact may be so strong that it may fire up dualism in completely new ways (no longer empires being pitted against each other, but masses that harbor feelings of humiliation supporting global terrorism, for example), thus undermining humankind’s chances to realize the promise that otherwise is entailed in the increase of global interdependence. Human rights teach the disadvantaged, downtrodden, and oppressed people around the world – low-class people, underlings, inferiors, or subalterns, whatever label – together with those who identify with them, to feel humiliated by conditions that formerly were accepted as “normal.” Chinese writer and intellectual Lu Xun whose real name is Zhou Shuren (1881–1936), for example, unmasked and condemned the humiliating effects of the feudal system (Lindner, 2007b, p. 16). The positive side of the increase of feelings of humiliation is that they imbue the human rights movement with the necessary emotional force to drive it forward. The human ability to feel such feelings is a crucial prerequisite for the human rights movement, because this movement requires conscientization for its advancement. Conscientization, explains Christie (2006), is “a psychological process in which individuals and groups are politically transformed by building a common consciousness that embraces the value of active political nonviolence” (p. 13). Conscientization is the mediator between humiliating antecedent conditions and prodemocracy movements. According to Montiel (2006), active nonviolent movements, locally and globally, become increasingly powerful when conscientization informs
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their activities. The ability to feel humiliated, on behalf of oneself and others, in the face of violations of dignity, represents the emotional engine that connects new awareness with conscientization, which then can drive systemic change. Atsumi and Suwa (this volume) make a case for the need for more conscientization in Japan. However, humiliation, particularly fear of future humiliation, can also have violently destructive or at least debilitating effects if not guided toward Mandela-like strategies. This is the negative side of feelings of humiliation. As soon as cycles of humiliation are in motion, they destroy any chance for unity and cooperation. Lindner (2002) contends that feelings of humiliation, when translated into hatred and leading to retaliation with acts of humiliation, represent the strongest force that hampers cooperation – feelings of humiliation as the “nuclear bomb of the emotions” (pp. 127–129). In Rwanda, the former underlings, the Hutu, targeted their former elite, the Tutsi, with genocide. Mandela did not follow their example; he did not instigate genocide of the white elite in South Africa. He promoted constructive systemic social change instead. Feelings are the arena of psychology, and feelings of humiliation are therefore an important topic for peace psychology to attend to. However, the discussion of dualism versus nondualism, though the turf of philosophers, and the discussion of human rights as a normative and legal framework, are equally important issues for peace psychology to look at, since all three, philosophy, human rights, and humiliation, are different perspectives on the opportunity to have unity in diversity.
The Need for a New Philosophical Foundation: Nondualism and Unity Instead of Dualism and Division In order to transcend living conditions that condemn millions of people around the world to abject poverty while a select few indulge in maximizing profit, and in order to give true life to equality in dignity in a cooperative win–win frame, the nondualistic principle of unity in diversity is helpful as conceptual guidance (Bond, 1998). Unity is needed to create cohesion in the global community with respect to the entire range of the human condition, from thought to narratives, ideology, purpose, and action, at all levels, from the individual psyche to global institution building. As to diversity, maintaining cultural diversity is as crucial for the peaceful survival of humankind as protecting biodiversity. Biodiversity may hold yet unknown medical remedies in store for humankind, and cultural diversity may provide essential social remedies. Finally, nondualistic ontologies are required to connect unity with diversity in peace-inducing ways so as to arrive at unity in diversity. For the past 10,000 years, the world was characterized by dualistic uniformity and division. Uniformity within in-groups was achieved through ruthless oppression and routine subjugation/humiliation of underlings, while division defined the relationship with enemy out-groups. The relationship between unity and diversity was regarded as zero-sum win–lose game – unity was conceptualized as only achievable at the expense of diversity and vice versa.
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In contrast, in a human rights context, unity is to be achieved through enabling and optimizing complex diversity by embedding difference into a shared normative foundation. Unity in diversity means neither suppressing diversity by aspiring to uniformity nor elevating diversity to destructive division that undermines unity. The first fallacy was committed, for example, in contexts that labeled themselves as communist and attempted to achieve equality through leveling all diversity and forcing their citizens into uniformity and sameness – as for Asia, the Cambodian genocide provides a gruesome example. The latter fallacy describes how in-groups during much of the past 10,000 years of human history used to develop their identity, namely, in opposition to out-groups, thus giving differences between groups the status of unbridgeable divisions. Unity in diversity, by steering clear of both fallacies, can foster a dignified non-humiliating win–win context. It is best realized by increasing both unity and diversity in a win–win fashion and can therefore be read as “More Unity in More Diversity.” Yoshikawa makes the unity in diversity principle graphically visible through the infinity symbol, or Möbius Strip (∞) (Yoshikawa, 1987, 1980). He developed a model for dialogue whereby unity is created out of the realization of differences, and the dialogical unity does not eliminate the tension between the contradictions between basic potential unity and apparent duality. He calls his model a doubleswing or identity in unity model. Concepts such as social peace, reconciliation, face, or harmony are all deeply affected by shifts in ontological orientations and their practical application. As described above, traditionally, within in-groups, these concepts meant subservient acquiescence to domination/submission. Elites kept underlings in an iron grip and called it “peace” when nobody dared protest. In present North Korea, for example, a dictatorship ensures calm and quiet and labels this state of affairs “peace.” In human rights frames, social peace, reconciliation, face, or harmony, together with all related concepts, are defined in profoundly different ways: all these concepts now entail the responsibility to realize human rights in a Mandela-like fashion. Human rights frame the entire peace discourse in new ways. “Peace” can no longer only be defined as success in holding down underlings – now this definition is rejected as illegitimate humiliation that warrants uprisings. In the new context, peace must be achieved by creating enabling conditions so that everybody can enjoy equality in dignity. Peace without equality in dignity is no longer peace. Peace psychology uses the latter definition of peace and rejects the first. Using the term “peace” without qualification can create great conceptual confusion. The situation of China vis-à-vis Tibet, for example, suffers from this confusion – all speak of peace and harmony, but use contradictory and mutually exclusive definitions. The large-scale geohistorical lens introduced earlier is indispensable to achieve the necessary differentiation: using the traditional normative order that characterized the past 10,000 years of human history, peace would be defined as quiet submission of Tibetans, while human rights define peace as dialogue between equals. How can the new kind of peace be nurtured and developed? One way is by scrutinizing all human cultures, including Asian cultures, and by “harvesting” those
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cultural world views, practices, and social-psychological skills that have unifying and equalizing effects (Lindner, 2007a). The yield of this harvest can then be used to better inform the twofold transformation that humankind must muster at the current juncture of its history: deep systemic change out in the world and deep change in our psyches. A novel kind of cognitive and emotional consciousness or awareness is needed, a more inclusive grasp on the human condition, a global consciousness. Yoshikawa’s model illustrates how Eastern and Western thought can fertilize each other. His model draws on two main sources, on Martin Buber (1944) and his idea of “dialogical unity” in I and Thou – a twofold movement between the self and the other that allows for both, unity and uniqueness – and on “soku,” the nondualistic Buddhist logic of “not-one, not-two.” Asia can contribute to (1) unity, to (2) diversity, and to (3) unity in diversity. First, Asian emphasis on harmonious societies entails great potential (when designed in nondualistic ways) to help forge unity. As to diversity, Asia can offer a wide variety of valuable peace-inducing cultural and anthropological know-how and lessons learned with respect to the human condition. Third, Asia, since it is a cradle of nondualistic ontologies, can help the world with a new metaphysical orientation that can bring about peaceful equality in dignity for all world citizens through successfully realizing unity in diversity. Since Asia can contribute to unity, can add to diversity, and can help merge both into unity in diversity, this chapter mirrors those three contributions in its structure. The first section discusses what Asia can contribute to the notion of unity, the second section looks at the diverse cultural know-how from Asia that world peace psychology can harvest, and the third section addresses the ontological frame that is needed to keep unity and diversity connected.
The Need for More Unity: Generating Systemic Change with a Global Scope In a world that increasingly grows interdependent, people who formerly lived apart become neighbors. Unfortunately, neighborhood is not sufficient to motivate people to care for the common good. Even though the so-called contact hypothesis, or the hope that mere contact can foster friendly cooperation, does work at the aggregate level, contact does not always guarantee peace – see a meta-analysis of the contact hypothesis by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006). Noor (this volume) illustrates this point. Merely being neighbors, as Malays and Chinese are in Malaysia, is not sufficient for peace (also Serbs and Croats in the Balkans, or Hutu and Tutsis in Rwanda turned upon each other even though they were neighbors – some were even married – as did Germans with their Jewish neighbors in Nazi-Germany). Equally, a peaceable culture cannot assure peace either. Khan (this volume) describes the relative weakness of Kashmir’s culture, originally among the most
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peaceable cultures in this world, when being caught in the conflict-ridden context of the partition and confrontation between India and Pakistan. Ross and colleagues have carried out illuminating work on the role of framing (Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004; Ross & Nisbett, 1991). When students were asked to play a game where they had the choice to cooperate or to cheat on one another (Prisoner’s Dilemma game) and they were told that this was a community game, they cooperated; however, they cheated on each other when told that the same game is a wall street game. Currently, the wall street game is the frame that is definitorial for most players at the highest global level, while people on the ground hope for a community game in vain – higher global levels force local neighborhoods into wall street frames. And as soon as local neighborhoods are at each others’ throats, insecurity is being diffused to the rest (Marshall, 1999). The statistics speak for themselves. Global terrorism can be described as one outflow of the diffusion of insecurity – young men in peaceful England, for example, identify with the suffering of Palestinians and prepare to die as suicide bombers (Lambert, 2008). The 2008 global financial crisis starkly illustrates how short-term profit maximization trumped the long-term safeguarding of the common good, both socially and ecologically, for too long. The gap between rich and poor has widened, locally and globally – see, among others, the Millennium Development Goals Indicators (http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx). Zhou’s (this volume) chapter on attitudes toward the rich in China speaks to this theme and its consequences. Evidently, it is insufficient to merely focus on solving local conflicts or to address ecological challenges only locally. Systemic change with a global scope is needed, so that local processes on all continents and in all world regions can be “framed” in a global community game spirit. Noor (this volume) champions this point at the end this book, emphasizing that peace psychology’s long-term goal is for fairness and justice to prevail also at the macro-structural level of society. The concept of harmony, as it is particularly emphasized in Asia, can help the world with this task.
Harvesting from the Asian Concept of Harmony Since shame, face-saving, and harmony are closely related, I first turn to shame and face-saving and then proceed to the notion of harmony.
Shame and Saving Face Fung and Chen (2001) argue that shame is a powerful and prevalent emotion in Asian cultures, and even though shame in Chinese culture is an emotion of disgrace, as in most cultures, it is also a moral discretion and sensibility that people desire to develop. In other words, shame can be directed to positive and negative
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ends. Li and Fischer (2004) suggest that shame and guilt shade into each other in Asia. Both emotions “direct people into self-examination in social situations in order to recognize their own wrong doings, as well as to motivate people to improve themselves” (p. 411). The ability to feel shame and humiliation is not just something to be avoided, but represents an asset that society needs for conscientization and the maintenance of a harmonious society. Face refers to a person’s public self-image. Face is also used in sociolinguistics, particularly politeness theory, and discussed in literature on negotiation and mediation. The universality of concepts such as politeness and face-saving are continuously explored, with Asian culture often being associated with face saving more than others. Matsumoto (1988) and Ide (1989) see important intercultural differences with regard to the question of individual volition and choice as drivers of politeness as compared to social structures. Japanese language, for example, encodes politeness at its very core. Japanese language has two main levels of politeness: one for intimate acquaintances, family, and friends (in-groups, or uchi, “inside”) and one for other groups (out-groups, soto, “outside”). The morphology of verbs reflects these levels. Japanese also employs different personal pronouns for each person according to gender, age, rank, degree of acquaintance, and other cultural factors. Politeness is thus not based on individual volition and decision, but on what in Japan is called wakimae, or “finding one’s place” within prescribed social norms. In Chinese social relations and everyday speech, face refers to the social perceptions of a person’s prestige and authority (mianzi) and to the confidence and trust within a social network in a person’s moral character (lian) (Ho,1976). So-called polite lies are acceptable, even expected. As is evident from these brief descriptions, these concepts are inscribed into the larger historical social and societal changes alluded to in the introduction to this chapter. Three profoundly different ideal-type cultures arose during the past 10,000 years of domination/submission, in different mixes within each cultural realm, with different ways of saving face: first, the “supremacist culture of the dominating elite,” second, the “subaltern culture of those underlings who had been successfully coopted into accepting subservience,” and third, the “culture of covertly resisting underlings.” (Any “culture of overtly resisting underlings” had to emulate a dominator’s culture in order to last; see further down.) As to saving face, superiors feared losing supremacy, and underlings feared punishment. Elites typically defended their honor against humiliation in duel-like ways (the first type of culture), a defense that was not permitted to underlings. A Samurai warrior in historic Japan, for example, would even commit ritual suicide if he lost his face and honor, while this culture was out of bounds for subordinates. A lord and his warriors in feudal Japan had the legal right to use their swords to kill lower persons, such as farmers, traders, or outcasts, when they deemed it necessary, without having to expect any duel-like responses. Consequently, it was potentially lethal to displease one’s superiors, and fear reigned among the majority of people (since the majority was inferior). It was prudent to be cautious and preserve an acceptable
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face. Some subalterns accepted this fate (the second type of culture), others did not, at least covertly (the third type). As to this third type, scholars who analyzed slavery note that sometimes a very special accommodation-resistance dialectic of obeying but not necessarily complying evolved, which allowed slaves to carve out a degree of autonomous and very distinctive culture, which eschewed the values embraced by the master class (Engerman & Genovese, 1975; Genovese, 1975; Smith, 1998). In sum, in traditional honor societies, the practice of saving face can serve domination, submission, and covert resistance to domination. Human rights call for a rejection of all three forms and advocate a salutogenic view of shame (Webb, 2005) – with shame and face saving serving the ideal of equality in dignity rather than submission/domination.
Harmony Within the context of human rights, also harmony can no longer be defined as the meek subservience of underlings. The term “harmonious society” is writ large in Asia (in Europe the term “social cohesion” is used more). China currently plans to develop a “Harmonious Society Measurement Standard” (www.chinacsr. com / 2007 / 10 / 11 / 1744-china-plans-harmonious-society-measurement-standard/). The notion of a harmonious society is also a central part of the “Asian way” debate – certain East Asian governments and intellectuals criticize the individualistic focus of liberal rights in the West, “as opposed to models of harmony in, most prominently, Confucian political thought” (Brown, 2002, p. 112). Like the notion of face, in the traditional world of ranked honor, everywhere on the globe, notions of harmony were inscribed into the three types of culture listed above. Harmony was regarded as being achieved when underlings behaved in a quiet and subservient manner. Many elites and subalterns identified fully with this definition of harmony, with others acquiescing only overtly, not covertly. Human rights advocacy view harmony differently. From the point of view of human rights, harmony must be defined as the successful flourishing of reciprocal connections and dialogue embedded into mutual respect for equality in dignity. The human-rights-inspired concept of harmony realizes true intersubjectivity – that we live in each others’ minds and look at ourselves with the eyes of others. Intersubjectivity is the basis of Yoshikawa’s model introduced earlier, and it includes the idea of pendulation (Levine, 1997) – a back-and-forth movement between subjective and intersubjective consciousness, which, when it succeeds, results in a relationship of harmonious interdependence – neither independence nor dependence. Human rights defenders oppose and feel humiliated by attempts to maintain harmony in ways defined by the traditional order of ranked honor. They also reject it when human rights are promoted with aggressive methods, because this is as inherently inconsistent with the very spirit of human rights. As mentioned earlier, in former times, when underlings succeeded to rise up, they replaced the tyrant, but kept the system in place, including the old definition of harmony. In contrast,
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the human rights message introduces two core transformations: (a) dismantling the tyrant and (b) dismantling and transcending all tyrannical systems and practices, in this way also introducing a new definition of harmony. Revolution means often only dismantling tyrants (a), while reform is typically more amenable to combining (a) and (b). Asia offers several examples of reform-versus-revolution debates. In Philippine history, for instance, José Rizal, in contrast to Andrés Bonifacio, was a proponent of institutional reforms by peaceful means rather than by violent revolution.
We Need More Diversity: Protecting Cultural Difference As noted earlier, protecting cultural diversity is as crucial for the peaceful survival of humankind as protecting biodiversity. Yet if we wish to create a world that is informed by the unity in diversity principle, we have to take great care that cultural identifications do not undermine unity, but are kept fluid and multifaceted, connected in nondualistic ways, rather than mutually exclusive. Huang (this volume) describes the dilemma that emerges when Taiwanese consciousness and Chinese consciousness and identities are conceptualized as separate and pitted against each other. What is needed are new forms of identity and consciousness, less monolithic and more accepting of diversity. This topic is as important for individual identity creation as for collective identity and memory creation. Muluk (this volume) shows how groups “adjust” their collective memory for reconciliation purposes and building peace. Indeed, sometimes it is more important to forget than to remember, at least in the sense Volf (1996) defines forgetting, namely, as an active act of nonremembering: remembering the past, its grievances, and humiliations, choosing to forgive, while purposively embracing the other in an act of preservation and transformation.
Harvesting from Diverse Cultural Know-How If we think of harvesting from cultural know-how, we need to avoid preserving two kinds of traditions and practices: first, practices that rank and mutilate (such as feudalism, or Chinese foot binding) and, second, practices that base in-group cohesion on out-group hatred or, in weaker form, on neglecting out-group concerns (i.e., since decades, Japanese insensitivity to the latter causes serious tension between Japan and its neighbors). What peace psychology must do is identify and nourish peaceful traditions such as “peaceful Islam.” Khisbiyah (this volume) presents the Indonesian Muslim debate on violence, nonviolence, social justice, and peacebuilding. “Civil Islam” is another important notion – Pohl (this volume) reports how commitment and tolerance are negotiated in Indonesian Islamic education. The Baku Bae Movement in Indonesia, discussed by Muluk (this volume), offers another important lesson that
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can inform peace psychology worldwide, namely how successful bottom-up conflict resolution can be led by civil society Asia can furthermore help world peace psychology highlight the role of women. Batistiana (this volume) illustrates how Philippine women, former combatants, were able to become agents of peace and development. Also the importance of technology needs to be heeded by peace psychology. Estuar and Montiel (this volume) discuss this point when they review the human–technology interface in nonviolent democratic transitions. In sum, Asia has vastly diverse cultural knowledge in store to enrich the understanding of diversity in world peace psychology.
We Need Unity in Diversity Unity has now been discussed, as has diversity. What would be the best ontological frame for our endeavor to create a better, more inclusive world where unity is combined with diversity in constructive ways?
Harvesting an Ontological Frame Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that reflects on “the study of being,” in Greek “ontology.” Philosophy of mind is the ontology of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain (Beakley & Ludlow, 2006). As noted earlier, the dominant Western metaphysical orientation that underpinned its spree of conquering the rest of the world over the past centuries was dualism. Dualism holds that ultimately there are two kinds of substance. René Descartes’ dualistic view of a mind–body dichotomy is perhaps the most widely known expression of dualism. Dualism is to be distinguished from pluralism, which holds that ultimately there are many kinds of substance, from nondualism and from monism, which is the metaphysical and theological view that all is one, either the mental (idealism) or the physical (materialism and physicalism). Physicalism is thus a monist concept, holding that that there are no kinds of things other than physical things. Contemporary scientists usually are no longer dualists, but physicalists (even though dualistic views still linger on in many spheres of life). However, also physicalism does not hold all the answers, at least not physicalism that is fashioned on Newtonian physics. Quantum social science is being proposed – “Human beings are in effect ‘walking wave particle dualities,’ not classical material objects” (Wendt, 2005, p. 7). At present, we observe growing fascination with so-called nondualistic approaches. To the nondualist, reality is ultimately neither physical nor mental, but an overwhelming state or realization beyond words. This view is being developed in many variations, with the gist of nondualism holding that while different
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phenomena are not the same, they are inseparable, or that there is no hard line between them. Peace psychology is well served with adopting nondualism as its ontological orientation, because nondualism celebrates the diversities of this world – be it cultural, ethnic, political, and so forth – while avoiding that these diversities attain the status of unbridgeable divisions. As alluded to in the introduction to this chapter, creating and firing up Manichaean self/other and good/evil dualisms prepares people for violence and convinces them that wars are worth fighting. Nondualism, in contrast, allows for the peaceful celebration of diversity precisely because, while it acknowledges that there are differences, it keeps them together in a unifying loop. Yoshikawa’s use of the infinity symbol illustrates this approach particularly well. Geopolitical particularities (intertwined with arbitrary processes) that would take up too much space to discuss here have caused an East/West difference in ontological approaches. Nondualistic approaches have evolved particularly in the mystical traditions of Asia’s religions and philosophical traditions. The main sacred traditions that have stimulated the rise of nonduality in Asia are Advaita Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism, Zen Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and contemplative Taoism. Kashmir, traditionally comprising the valley surrounded by the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal range, was once known as a “paradise on earth,” a place “known for its peace loving, artistic and intellectual populace” attests Khan (this volume). In this unique valley the Pratyabhijna school (part of Kashmir Shaivism) developed the teachings that are needed today at a global scale, namely, how to achieve the nondualistic leap of consciousness or the “spontaneous recognition” of the Supreme (Sharma, 2007). The ultimate nondual reality can also be called “God,” “Shunyata” (emptiness, especially emphasized in Mahayana Buddhism), “Brahman” (see the Indian philosopher Shankara, 788–820 AD), “Spirit” (see Integral Advaita and the Indian thinker Sri Aurobindo, 1872–1950), “The Self” (see Tamil sage Ramana Maharshi, 1879– 1950), or “The Dao” (see the Chinese philosopher Lao Zi). Also the mystical traditions of Sufism can be labeled nondualistic. Nondualism can also be expressed in nontheistic ways. Consider, among others, “The All” as conceptualized by the philosopher of the ancient world, Plotinus (circa 205–270 BC); “The Absolute” by German philosopher Schelling (1775–1854), who was influenced by German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832); or simply “The Nondual” by British idealist philosopher Bradley (1893) (1846–1924). We find similar thoughts in various branches of psychology and psychotherapy (Fromm, 1976), Other relevant terms are interrelatedness, pantheism, mutual transformation, person-in-community, or panexperientialism, as well as the “unity in diversity” principle that is used in this chapter. In agreement with Mahayana Buddhism, the contemporary Western thinker Wilber (1996) believes that reality is ultimately a nondual union of emptiness and form. Wilber describes the history of philosophy in general, especially of the West, as a continuous swinging between two poles of “truth” – be it subject–object, mind–body, culture–nature, or individual–group. While the West tended to conceptualize those dualities as solid, separate opposites,
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the East tended to see them rather as a continuum, arising simultaneously and mutually like a concave/convex line (Wilber, 1979, p. 25). To round up this section and this chapter, unity is held together with diversity in a dignified win–win fashion only if nondualistic approaches are used, and this is valid at all levels, from micro- to meso- and macro-levels. Huang’s (this volume) discussion of Chinese versus Taiwanese consciousness may serve as an example. Unity in diversity as a guiding principle cherishes both identities by encouraging their coexistence in the hearts and minds of each Taiwanese citizen, and it fosters peaceful cooperation between Chinese and Taiwanese political institutions. As long as unity in diversity reigns as ontological orientation, Taiwanese and Chinese consciousnesses can be regarded as equally worthy and dignified, and everybody can reap gains from the cooperation between both political realms. Uniformity and division, in contrast, would foster top-down coercion and could even unleash violence, in ways that would be perceived as utterly humiliating by human rights defenders, if uniformity were used as a guiding principle, Taiwanese identity, as well as Taiwan as a political entity would most probably have to be abandoned for a uniform Chinese consciousness and country; if division were the guiding principle, Taiwanese and Chinese consciousness and political institutions would become pitted against each other and war could be the consequence.
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The Future of Peace Psychology in Asia Noraini M. Noor
The theories and practices of peace psychology in Asia are conditioned by a host of cultural, historical, and social-political factors in this part of the world. Christie, Wagner, and Winter (2001), Christie (2006), and Christie, Tint, Wagner, and Winter (2008) claim that violence and peace are expressions of the interactions among these macro factors. Montiel, in the introductory chapter of this volume, likewise stresses the embeddedness of social violence and peace in multiple macro-layers and the interconnectedness of social violence and peace. She succinctly argues that due to Asia’s rich history of peace and conflict, peace psychology in the region will likewise negotiate its course in reference to the legacies of its political history. Christie (2006) emphasizes the 2 × 2 systems perspective that violence and peace are expressed in both direct and structural forms. In Asia, both direct and structural violence exist, but direct forms of violence are dramatic and easier to grasp than the subtle, entrenched, and normalized character of structural violence that kills people slowly through the deprivation of human need satisfaction. Even though structural violence is subtle, a number of chapters in this volume provide evidence that structural peacebuilding is taking place, albeit at a slow pace. Due to the ingrained and structural roots of social violence in Asia, emphasis on structural peacebuilding is crucial. The chapters also indicate that structural peacebuilding will be an uphill battle because it typically represents a “threat” to the status quo or the prevailing authoritarian regimes. However, for social justice to prevail, structural peacebuilding is imperative. Recognizing this importance, the first part of this closing chapter discusses peace psychology in Asia taking into account its geohistorical legacies, notably colonialism, collective culture, and religion. The second section elucidates the future directions of peace psychology in Asia along three themes, tradition vis a vis modernity, peacebuilding across social layers, and governance-related matters.
Peace Psychology or Peace Psychologies in Asia? If there is to be an Asian peace psychology, what should be its nature and its relevance? What can we take to be the distinguishing mark of peace psychology of so vast a region, with so much diversity? Are there quintessential values that can be C.J. Montiel, N.M. Noor (eds.), Peace Psychology in Asia, Peace Psychology Book Series, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0143-9_17, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
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the bases of Asian peace psychology and somehow distinguish Asians from other people in the world, and can such distinctions apply to all parts of Asia’s immensely large and heterogeneous population? What we likewise need to realize is that Asian countries are in different stages of economic and sociopolitical developments that have bearings on the nature of the country’s social conflicts and the practice of peace psychology. Three tiers of developmental transition can be discerned: (1) we have the most economically and technologically advanced countries that include Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan; (2) in the next tier, we have Mainland China, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, and the Philippines; and (3) in the least developed we have Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, and those in central Asia. Thus, the nature of peace psychology in Asia will to a large extent reflect the concerns of the people at that particular juncture, and this can clearly be seen in the chapters of this volume. According to Christie (2006), three themes can be discerned in post-Cold War peace psychology, and these are “. . . (1) greater sensitivity to geohistorical context, (2) a more differentiated perspective on the meanings and types of violence and peace, and (3) a systems view of the nature of violence and peace” (p. 3). These themes are even more evident in Asian countries due to their varied legacies (Montiel, this volume). The current volume is organized by regions (i.e., South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia) because the nature of social conflicts and peace in Asia vary by regions. There also is variation within each specific country. For example, South Asia as represented by India is defined by conflict about group relations and identities, with religion adding another layer to the conflict. The countries of East Asia made up of Japan, Taiwan, and China talk of forgiveness, collective memories, current intergroup relations, and psychological aspects of economic gaps. The chapters on Southeast Asia, in contrast, strongly resonate on the theme of reconciliation, particularly peacemaking and peacebuilding processes. Examining each of the regions more closely, there are again differences in the nature of the conflicts. For example, while the chapter by Khan examines violence in Kashmir that started as a dispute between India and Pakistan, Khan and Sen look at communal tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India. In both chapters, identity (national, ethnic, and religious) is crucial, and it is this question of identity that lies at the root of much of the conflict and violence. Thus, there are conflicts within the country (religious, ethnic, and identity issues) as well as between countries (India and Pakistan in the case of Kashmir) that will influence the discipline of peace psychology in India. Similarly within the other Asian regions, the same diversity in the nature of social conflicts and its narratives are observed. Adopting a systems approach, which views the nature of conflict and peace as rooted in geohistorical factors, may also provide a more holistic view as it suggests that the nature of conflict and peace and the preeminent issues of the time will vary across countries. Therefore, while it is indeed tempting to see peace psychology in Asia as a monolithic practice applicable to all Asian countries, this clearly is not the case.
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In addition, many of the social conflicts reported in these chapters are phrased in term of the “us–them” distinction (with “us” as good and “them” as evil), using the divisive markers of nation, identity, religion, race/ethnicity, or class. For example, Khan and Sen showed that while the causes of the Hindu–Muslim conflict in India are complex, identity politics is the main culprit with the two parties anchoring their identity within their own cultural groups and kept in place by those in power to sustain their political agenda. Religion, as the all-encompassing and exclusive identity that sets people apart from each other, is used as the dividing factor, akin to the way it was exploited during the time of the partition of the Indian subcontinent, reminding people of the painful memories of the Hindu–Muslim riots of the time. To a large extent, the expression of social conflicts into the “us–them” distinction is due to the colonial past, perpetuated by the authoritarian regimes that replaced them.
Structural Violence and the Vestiges of Colonialism in Asia Histories of Asian countries are marked by colonial occupations. These colonial powers dominated and exploited territories to enrich their motherlands. To ensure their continued domination and control, these colonial powers imposed certain structures that were meant to keep the locals in their place or pit them against one another to prevent uprisings against their rule. The British, for example, perfected and implemented the system of “divide and rule” in the countries under their control, favoring a particular group and neglecting the concerns of other groups. After World War II, these colonies gained independence, but postwar regimes continued with the various forms of authoritarian state interventions not much different from that of their colonial masters. Why? The structures imposed during colonial rule had become too deeply entrenched in the society over the centuries and were the only viable governing system familiar to the people. In addition, those who held power realized that they could use the existing system to their advantage to ensure their grip on power. Hence, during the nation’s formative years (and in some cases to the present), Asian countries were predominantly authoritarian in orientation, but claimed and practiced a few democratic forms borrowed from the West like elections, universal suffrage, and political parties. Today, Asian states tend to be typified by a government invested with the responsibility of upholding collective needs, but with entrenched political elites and an absence of many liberal democratic practices (Inoguchi & Newman, 1997). Malaysia, for example, has been ruled by the same multiethnic coalition party since independence in 1957. A similar longevity of power (party-based or family-based) is also seen in other Asian countries. In these countries, a strong government and a curtailment of some political rights are deemed necessary in the interests of the society. The leaders of these countries further claimed that the multiethnic nature of their country (another legacy of colonialism)
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and the demands of managing the welfare of developing societies dictate certain priorities and an element of authoritarianism. In most cases, the judiciary and its enforcement agencies are subservient to the group in power, hence the potential for internal repression and state violence. Thus, many of the present conflicts observed in Asia are due to this legacy of the past where conflicts are rooted in structural inequalities with huge differences in political and economic power among the different groups, divisions that often are aggravated by religious differences.
Collectivist Values, Social Violence, and Peace in Asia While traditions vary across Asia, there are some common characteristics. For example, it is often said that Asian societies are collectivist, based on a group orientation where the interests of the group are felt to come before those of the individual (Hofstede, 1980; Oyserman, Koon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002; Triandis, 1995). The consequence of this, it is argued, is that Asians are more group conscious than people in the West, who are seen as more individualistic; they work for the good of the group, are less selfish, and accept that cohesion and stability of the group are more important than the personal interests of individuals. Group orientation is also associated with values such as self-effacement, selfdiscipline, and personal sacrifice to the greater good. This is integral to perceptions of public morality, harmony, and social dynamism. Respect for family ties and the elderly, frugality, filial piety, hard work, and teamwork are further elements of this matrix (Koh, 1993). These much-hyped characteristics have popularly been known as “Asian values.” This concept of “Asian values,” however, has serious methodological problems and limitations because it implies that all Asian countries share a value system that is identifiable and distinct, transcending national, religious, and ideological differences (Khong, 1997). In addition, the advocates of “Asian values” have tended to look primarily at East Asia (Korea, Japan, and China) and have ignored Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Central Asia. Despite these constraints, Asian cultures are, on the whole, more collective than Western cultures, with a greater emphasis on group orientation and relationship (e.g., Hofstede, 1980; Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002). These collective values have been exploited and politicized by certain regimes in defense of their authoritarian governance. Hence, in many Asian countries, cultural values such as consensus and harmony are used as a tool to control dissent. As an example, in these societies, the Confucian tradition of acceptance of hierarchy, the need for social harmony, respect and reverence for family, and benevolence in government (Inoguchi & Newman, 1997) is used to justify the existing paternalistic social order. In other words, these values are used to consolidate the state’s authority in the interest of the “common good” and create a submissive population that is respectful of authority and hierarchy. Because of social historical forces, these values have found expression as cultural norms today. But these collective values can equally be put to good use under the right leadership.
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The Religious Factor in Asian Public Life Religion is an integral component of Asian cultural values and one that has a profound effect on people’s lives. This can be seen in both of the People Power movements in the Philippines where the Catholic Church was central in ousting Marcos and Estrada from office. The recent demonstrations of the monks in Myanmar against the ruling military Junta (September 2007) also has given the general public a boost in their struggle for democracy. Asia boasts a diversity of religions, chiefly Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Taoism, and many others (Confucianism is not a religion, but its philosophy is practiced in many East Asian and Chinese societies in Southeast Asia). Despite the onslaught of globalization (and previously modernization), religion still plays a major role in the life of Asians and contributes to identity and group orientation. The chapters in this volume attest to the importance of religion in Asian public life. While religion is seen as the cause of conflict and violence in the world, Noor and Moten (2007) argued that religion has been used as a convenient justification for other underlying problems, historically rooted in colonialism, accompanied by conflicts encouraged by the proxy wars of the Cold War era (Montiel, 2003), and for other contemporary failings in the social political landscape of these newly independent Asian countries (such as social injustices, poverty, unemployment, political repression, etc.). This view of religion as a cause of conflict and violence, however, gained impetus with the publication of Samuel Huntington’s controversial thesis on the clash of civilizations, advanced in the post-Cold War context in international politics (1996). Such simplistic thinking on the role of religion as a source of conflict is clearly described by Muluk and Malik (this volume). While many perceived the violence in Maluku to be caused by religion, Muluk and Malik showed that the violence was in fact due to the long history of structural inequalities that were put in place during colonial times. This kind of massive violence cannot be explained simply by religion or ethnicity but needs a multilevel explanation that takes into account the historical, social, and intergroup levels. Because of such deep-rooted inequalities between the groups (further compounded by religion), minor disagreements or squabbles become sufficient triggers to provoke the groups into direct intergroup violence as in the case of Maluku. Often, religion is only a convenient reason to justify a conflict. What is sometimes overlooked is that religion can be used as a tool in peacemaking and peacebuilding (Khisbiyah; Pohl; Noor; Muluk; this volume). Khisbiyah, for example, investigates media discourse on the issues of violence, social justice, and peacebuilding among three Indonesian Muslim chapters corresponding to conservative, moderate, and progressive groups and showed that their views on these issues are not monolithic and do not occur in a sociopolitical vacuum. She postulates that constructive dialogue and reconciliation among these highly contested diverse Muslim groups, as well as between Muslim and non-Muslim groups, are possible. Similarly, Pohl demonstrates that Islamic educational institutions are agents in the network of civil Islam, promoting justice and peacebuilding and fostering values that are essential for peaceful coexistence in a plural society such as Indonesia. Noor’s
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chapter suggests that similar religious values can be the common ground to initiate dialogue between Malays and Chinese. Muluk describes how religion, more specifically the Islamic principle of Islah (forgiveness), was used to reconcile the victims of the Tanjung Priok tragedy with their past perpetrators. These chapters emphasized that in Asian societies where religion plays a central role in public life, religion and religious education can be used to educate and improve civil society, particularly when the opportunities provided by the state are limited. However, while championing religious peacemaking and peacebuilding, it should be acknowledged that in most cases, on their own, they are never sufficient, and to be effective, they need to be used alongside other conventional approaches (Smock, 2006). In sum, due to the varied nature of social conflicts experienced in the different Asian countries, it would be more appropriate to talk of peace psychologies, rather than peace psychology, in Asia.
Future Directions There are three concerns that I would like to consider in this final section: first, achieving some balance between tradition and modernity; second, peacebuilding at the personal, relational, and structural levels; and third, deliberating on governance and peacebuilding.
Balancing Tradition and Modernity Asia, as other parts of the world, cannot escape the process of globalization or the growing integration and interconnectedness of economies and societies around the world. How can globalization and its accompanying processes affect Asia, especially the practice of peace psychology in Asia? Fukuyama argued that globalization and its processes may lead to “. . . an increasing homogenization of all human societies, regardless of their historical origins or cultural inheritances” (Fukuyama, 1992, p. xiv). While this may be true to some extent, as observed in the dilution of cultural differences and the breakdown of traditional values and institutions, the reverse is equally possible. People may become even more aware of their cultures as a backlash to what are perceived as uncertainties in the sociopolitical landscape. This phenomenon can be seen in the revival of traditional values and/or a rediscovery of indigenous cultures as well as religion. Indonesia and Malaysia have witnessed a mushrooming of Islamic movements that view themselves as counterforces to cultural domination by the global West (Khisbiyah, this volume). While the goal of these groups is to assert their religious identity in the face of what they regard as imperializing ideas like modernization and secularism, many may also turn to radicalism, especially in circumstances where moderate ways are perceived to have taken too long to produce results. A similar
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process, a return to the local, what Hall (1991) calls “ethnicity” can also result as a counter-reaction to marginalization. Liu and Sibley (this volume) provided another perspective on how a society can maintain continuity in the midst of change, that is, via historical narratives. Using the case of New Zealand, they showed that both Maoris and Pakeha accepted the Treaty of Waitangi as the most important historical event in its history. However, while all groups share this content, they differed in how they positioned this history in terms of contemporary relevance; that is, “. . . those opposed to historical redress position the past as irrelevant to the present, whereas those in favor of historical redress position the present as embedded in structures produced by past injustices” (Liu & Shibley, this volume, p. 21). Therefore, the way the group’s history is represented will specify what it was before, what it is now, and what it will be in the future. These social representations of history are important for the country’s political culture; as a society moves into a new era or faces new challenges, it may need to renew its social contract with its members and negotiate the past in light of the present and the future. The chapter by Atsumi and Suwa on the historical conflict and reconciliation between Japan and China, however, found that the young in Japan do not see the present to be connected to the past. While they are aware of their country’s history, they somehow chose to be apolitical and more interested in current universal issues. In other words, they are more attuned to present global happenings, rather than the past historical conflict between Japan and China. To them, the past is the past, let bygones be bygones. Why should they, the young, be bound by the past of their parents or grandparents’ generation? Reminiscing on the past will not help them deal with changes that are currently taking place in their environment. Asian societies are presently caught at such a crossroad between the traditional and the modern, where the old institutions and values are increasingly being brought in contact with modern forces. And, whether they like it or not, Asian societies will have to deal with this situation. As shown in the case of Japan, the young are indifferent to the history of the past. Thus, should they totally disconnect with the past and embrace only the present and the future? Or can the old values be revitalized in the context of the present? In other words, can they exploit the opportunities of the present environment, while at the same time retaining their cultural roots? And are they willing to do so? These are some questions that Asian societies must grapple with in light of changes brought by globalization. Estuar and Montiel (this volume) show how Asians at this crossroad can exploit and make full use of modern technology as a tool for advocacy work in peace psychology by facilitating and promoting civic engagement and social movements. In the context of globalization forces, traditions and cultural identity can coexist with modernity. As shown in their chapter, the interaction between human agency and technology produces cognitive and behavioral changes, making people more innovative, enabling them to overcome traditional restraint, and offering the opportunity to mobilize from the bottom up. This is very much needed in many Asian societies where the established political structures do not function as adequate avenues for the expression of grievances and aspirations, a problem that has also contributed to
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civic activism and changing expectations of authority and leadership. The study also provides an example of how tools developed for online socializing can be successfully co-opted to assist in times of crisis, providing up-to-the-minute information from many areas that traditional media may not be able to reach. How Asian societies balance tradition with modernity must be contextualized within the country’s social and cultural fabrics, and we cannot readily assume what works best in one society will also work in another. Some societies may refuse to open up to the new challenges, while others are increasingly embracing these changes. A few may even want to reinterpret history to justify their political agenda. Therefore, globalization will not result in a sweeping away of culture or a massive resurgence of traditional values, but rather we will see some elements of push and pull with the balance varying across societies. Such changes are to be found in all societies, but due to the mainly authoritarian nature of Asian societies, these changes have added an element of anxiety to the process of change. For example, after 32 years under Suharto’s rule, Indonesians are still paying for the effects of his “New Order” legacy. While civic and social movements are stronger, corruption and poverty are still rampant with structural peace yet to be achieved.
Peacebuilding Across Social Layers: Individual, Group, and Society There are three levels of peacebuilding that should be addressed in Asia: the individual (personal), group (relational), and society (structural). Most of the peacebuilding efforts in Asian countries are still situated at the individual and group levels. However, if the long-term goal of peace psychology is for fairness and justice to prevail in society, or peacebuilding as referred to by Christie and colleagues (2001), then increasingly the next course of action is to strive for structural peacebuilding. Peacebuilding at the individual level centers on desired changes in the person. After a traumatic experience, individuals need to undergo some sort of healing process to enable them to move forward. Studies have shown that when ignored, some victims of past violence are at risk for becoming perpetrators of future violence (van der Merwe & Vienings, 2001). The Tanjung Prioktragedy shows how even after so many years, the psychological and emotional effects of the tragedy still haunt the victims, curtailing their role in society. Because the perpetrators were those in power, the victims were able to help themselves by initiating the process of reconciliation (with the help of a third party), only after the downfall of Suharto. Doing so gave the victims a sense of empowerment. At the same time, the perpetrators were relieved of their past wrongdoing and showed remorse by compensating the victims for their past suffering (Muluk, this volume). Due to the central role of religion in Indonesia, the mediator or the third party was a respected religious actor, and the mediation process itself was carried out within a religious framework, providing an example of a successful faith-based intervention, accompanied by conventional diplomacy.
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While counseling is helpful at the individual level, it may not be feasible due to stigmatization and apprehension about such practices in the Asian context. Awareness of the benefits of such sessions needs to be disseminated in casual or everyday interactions. In addition, health professionals and volunteers need to be familiar with the local language and context so that they can design programs that are meaningful to the people, drawing from traditional and communal practices and customs whenever possible. In the Tanjung Priok case, for example, many sessions were held between the perpetrators and the victims to clarify the perspectives of both sides. While these were not called “counseling” per se, they were similar to counseling sessions in that there were facilitators who moderated the sessions, asking individuals to talk and share their experiences, and in doing so bring into the open what they had kept for a long time. The cathartic effect for both parties was just as therapeutic as found in traditional counseling. Therefore, in this case, the “counseling” was contextualized within the language of the locals. The next level of peacebuilding activities focuses on repairing damaged relationship between conflicting parties via communication and dialogue with the goal of reconciliation, forgiveness, and trust building. As shown by several chapters in the volume (Muluk; Muluk & Malik; Noor), dialogue between parties can increase their awareness of their own role in the conflict and develop a more accurate perception of their own and the other group’s identity. Such dialogue can lead to a deeper understanding and can help to change the image of the other. At this level, the goal of peacebuilding is to achieve some sort of a working relationship between the conflicting groups. A shared future vision with the groups working together in joint projects should be envisaged, if possible. Muluk shows that while reconciliation can pave the way for the past to be acknowledged and wrongdoings redressed, the groups somehow failed to envision a common, connected future. Indeed, this is not an easy task but repeated endorsements and outreach via a variety of mass communication tools (Internet, TV, radio, and print media) as well as educational and community activities such as peace-education projects, conflict-resolution training, and community-outreach projects can help the groups to see the possibility of working together for a shared future (Lund, 2001). At both the individual and group levels, in the societies where religion is still central, aspects of religious peacebuilding can be integrated into the local, traditional, or indigenous approach to make it more meaningful for the people. The role of women in peacebuilding is often overlooked. While in armed conflict, women are often stereotypically portrayed as passive victims or recipients of relief aid, Batistiana (this volume) showed that women can also be combatants and peacebuilders, as reflected in the Moros of Mindanao. In their role as peacebuilders, these women are instrumental in NGO work, community organization, and economic empowerment, among others. In these relational roles, women, due to their very nature of being caretakers of the family, are seen to be nurturant while at the same time are also protective and supportive and act as mediators between other individuals and groups. The final level of peacebuilding is less often carried out but is equally important. This is the structural dimension or the root causes of the conflict: social conditions
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that foster violent conflict. As noted, in Asian countries, crises arise out of structural roots, laid down during colonial rule and perpetuated by the post-independence regimes that replaced them (Montiel, 2003; this volume). As stable peace must be built on social, economic, and political foundations that serve the needs of the people (Haugerudbraaten, 1998), these root causes, though complex, must be addressed. To initiate social structural change is no easy task. Take the case of Malaysia for example (Noor, this volume); the affirmative action policies taken by the government after the race riots can be considered structural peacebuilding because they aimed to restructure the Malaysian society to make it more equitable and balanced. These policies are structural changes in the “economic” sphere, and they are integral in preventing future conflict. However, because structural changes in the “political” domain were not adequately addressed, problems remain to this day, including the lack of transparent and accountable elections, judicial and constitutional reforms, political parties, institutions that provide procedures, and mechanisms for effectively handling and resolving conflicts, among others. In fact, during this time the government amended several acts to make the political situation even more repressive (such as the Sedition Act and the Internal Security Act); the implementation of these economic policies soon became corrupted, benefiting the rich with political connections, rather than the targeted poor. Therefore, while the policies can be construed as structural peacebuilding efforts, because the basic structural foundations of the country have not changed much since colonial times, problems still occur. That is why even with the People Power movements in the Philippines, authoritarian rule remains. This is the dilemma that confronts many Asian countries; the institutional controls of a just government have not fully taken root. While the goal of peacebuilding is to create sustainable peace characterized by the absence of physical and structural violence, the elimination of discrimination, and self-sustainability (Reychler, 2001) or in other words, social justice (Christie, Wagner & Winters, 2001; MacNair, 2002), moving toward this type of environment goes beyond mere problem solving or conflict management. There are, however, signs that show Asian countries are moving in this direction, as discussed in the next section on governance.
Structural Peacebuilding: Making Governance Structures Sensitive to Communal and Local Issues To a large extent, peace psychology is also related to issues of governance, where violence and peace are concerns not only at the individual and group levels but more importantly at the macro-structural level (Montiel, this volume). Because good governance is seen to address structural violence by its emphasis on positive development outcomes at the macro-structural level (such as reducing poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, social injustices, etc.), it is considered a vital peacebuilding project. What does governance mean? According to Quibria (2006), governance is a broad, multidimensional concept that lacks operational precision depending on
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which aspect of governance is highlighted. If emphasis is on political regimes, then democracy, human rights, participation, and freedom of the press are some of the critical elements of governance. However, if economic management is stressed, sound economic management, requiring the support of an efficient bureaucracy, should be grounded in a transparent, participatory, and accountable decision-making process. Or, if economic policy is emphasized, governance is reflected in the capacity of the government to design, formulate, and implement appropriate policies, taking into account the needs of the country. But when governance is used to define the legal and judicial frameworks, this highlights the separation, independence, and effectiveness of the judiciary; the enforcement of contracts; and the rule of law. Therefore, governance is often used as an umbrella concept to refer to a range of different, albeit related, ideas. With respect to Asian countries, how should governance be defined? By right, it should encompass all the above-related aspects, but Quibria’s (2006) study exploring the relationship between governance and economic growth in Asia’s developing economies seems to suggest that in these countries, not all aspects of governance are equally critical. What is important depends on the developmental stage of the country. In governance-deficit countries (e.g., China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, to name a few) compared to those exhibiting a surplus (e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Malaysia, to name a few), the economic aspects of governance relating to government effectiveness and regulatory quality are regarded as more important than political aspects relating to voice and accountability or control of corruption. In other words, in the former countries, political liberalization is secondary to basic economic well-being. What this implies is that there may be a progression in terms of how governance is to be viewed. While both are equally important (as economic reforms are dependent on the politics of the country), in the Asian context, maybe issues of governance should be taken one step at a time, to enable change to have time to make an impact. In this case, governance can be seen as a gradual process from growth and economic development to social transformation and, hopefully, to political change. Therefore, from the perspective of social justice, the responsibility of grassroots peacebuilding is to ensure that economic and political development takes place in an equitable way. However, in many cases when governance is referred to, it is the political aspects that are emphasized, because to a large extent, economic and social outcomes are dependent on the country’s political regimes. Asia, in particular, is still characterized by a strong bureaucracy and an absence of the separation of powers. In fact, the state, the ruling party, and bureaucracy are seen as one and the same. The principles of a just government such as justice, accountability, and transparency with public trust as the glue that holds the community together is not properly implemented (Hunter, 2008). The institutions that are supposed to assure a stable collective life are usually corrupted; they have allowed themselves to become the personal tools of the ruling party and not of the public. Currently, in many Asian countries, the old restraints on power and greed are gradually fading, yet the institutional controls of good governance have not fully taken root; this transitional limbo has resulted in a system of governance that is mostly based on money and coercive power. The
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changes brought by globalization have stimulated an intensification of demands for participatory politics at the community level. That is why the younger, more educated, and aware populace are especially up in arms; the times are telling them that if they are to continue being governed in this manner, their future survival in the modern world will be compromised. Increasingly, governmental authority is questioned and accountability is demanded by the governed. Exposed to modern challenges, many Asians look for a government that is more responsive to their immediate economic and local needs (such as proper schools and hospitals), rather than for more political rights as in the West (Khong, 1997). In most cases, Asians are open to change, but they seek to make change relevant to their personal circumstances. In doing so, they look for a government that is accountable at the local level. This is a politics of local identity that promotes local interaction and, in doing so, encourages participation from the grassroots. This politics of identity can be seen in Taiwan, where repressed feelings of a distinct Taiwanese identity now find political expression, and the independence versus reunification debate is increasingly being brought into the open (Huang, this volume). A vigorous grassroots politics is also seen in Indonesia through the Tanjung Priok incident and the Baku Bae Movement (Muluk; Muluk & Malik; this volume), where locals get their acts together to reconcile and put a closure to the tragedies that have caused them so much grief for so long. Similarly in the Philippines and Malaysia, grassroots politics and concerns with local issues are increasingly being brought to the fore. We are witnessing an emergence of a new Asian politics and government that have as the foundation, concerns of the community, rather than some abstract elitist notions. The gradual process is already taking place. For example, the recent 12th general election in Malaysia on March 8, 2008, rung a death knell for old-style Malaysian politics and introduced a new multiethnic politics, where people voted across the racial divide, voting as Malaysians, not as Malays, Chinese, or Indians (Noor, this volume). They indicated that they wanted a fair, just, and equal society based on merits, no longer on ethnicity or religion. The recent emergence in Malaysia of a nonracial politics is made possible due to a number of factors, among others the populace’s unhappiness with the present ruling party that has been in power since independence in 1957. Being in power without a strong opposition for so long turned the long-time ruling party into an elective dictatorship. The abuse of power was blatant, as in cases where policies that were suppose to benefit the poor were only benefiting the rich with political connections and a judiciary that was increasingly being seen as an extension of the ruling party. A more educated populace with greater awareness of global happenings has also helped. Prior to the election, the information and communication technology (ICT) was used by the opposition to reach and inform the public similar to the way described by Estuar and Montiel (this volume), as a tool for advocacy work to aid and promote civic engagement and social movement because the state machinery was seen as the mouthpiece of the ruling party and could no longer be trusted to give a fair and balanced report.
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Though the National Front still won, their majority was substantially reduced, and with a stronger opposition in parliament, they would now have to be more transparent and accountable for their acts. This change also implies that the old guards have to reassess themselves and make radical changes if they want to remain relevant. They need to accept that the political landscape has changed and the policies they make affect people of all races. Therefore, the old policies based on “defending Malay rights” no longer sells, and policy debates must promote policy issues such as the rights of Malaysians and on matters such as improving the school systems and hospitals, and the recent price hikes in basic goods, rather than sentiments. Changes in governance must involve structural changes that are informed by the people, because those in power have too much to lose to risk making changes. Based on the chapters of this volume, there are two challenges to the change narrative from authoritarian to more democratic practices. First is that change must be pluralized to involve multiple confrontations involving domination and resistance rather than a simple mode-of-production narrative. This is similar to the multilevel model of peacebuilding posited by Christie et al. (2008), where there are multiple entry points, representing multiple opportunities available in the peacebuilding efforts. Second, people’s basic needs and the existing structure of power relations need to be questioned and addressed. Will new systems of government be any better than the one that they replace? While it will be informed by more democratic practices, the precise mechanism is still to be decided and will most probably be based on local needs by giving people a voice in the decisions that shape their lives. Due to differences in the sociohistorical backgrounds of the countries, there is bound to be country specificity with regard to the appropriate governance practice. As mentioned by Dixit (2004, p. 4), “. . . it is not always necessary to create replicas of Western-style (governance) from scratch, it may be possible to work with such alternative institutions as are available, and build on them.” Hence, some amount of experimentation on existing governance structures may be needed to make it more sensitive to local needs. Thus, as there is no one Asian culture, there cannot be one Asian government structure that fits all. However, on the basis of what we are seeing, it will be one that relates to grassroots politics and is concerned with local issues.
Conclusion Based on the chapters in this volume, if we are to pigeonhole the kinds of social conflicts in Asia within the 2 × 2 systems perspective of peace psychology (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001), we would see a disproportionate representation of structural violence related to colonialism and authoritarian regimes, identity (ethnic/race, religious, national), and poverty (very similar to those reported earlier by Montiel, 2003). With respect to peacebuilding, however, the reverse is observed, where examples of direct peace are more prevalent than structural peace. While this discrepancy
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between the kinds of violence and peace can be handled most effectively at the government level, as mentioned, those in power would be the least likely to do so. Thus, change must be initiated by the grassroots, and we see this gradually happening in many Asian countries. In doing so, the issue is how to redress social-historical injustices without alienating any one particular group (based on their many different identities) and build a tolerant “cosmopolitan” society where cosmopolitanism, according to Appiah (2006), comprises three distinct elements: people have obligations to others, differences are important and tolerance is necessary for mutual coexistence, and acceptance of both universal and local values. While Lindner (this volume) describes the promise of having “unity in diversity” and dignity throughout Asia, in many cases, it is the “clash of civilizations” that is manifest. This is indeed a challenge for peace psychologists in Asia, to negotiate a respect for differences that are rooted in varying geohistorical contexts. It follows then, the term “Asian peace psychology” does not hold much meaning beyond the geographical one. The diversity of the region – ethnic/racial, cultural, religious, and historical – makes it one of the most fascinating areas of the world, but also seriously complicates the task of defining a discrete “Asian” form of peace psychology. Furthermore, as witnessed by the chapters in this volume, not only are the kinds of conflicts diverse in the different parts of Asia depending on the developmental stage of the country and geohistorical conditions, the kinds of peacebuilding approaches also must be sensitive and unique to the country. While some principles from the Western peace psychology literature may be applicable to the Asian case, Montiel (this volume) stresses that these may need to be contextualized in the language and culture of the locals to be meaningful. In many cases, due to Asia’s strong collective culture, peace psychology in Asia will need to look beyond individual psychology phenomena and consider the larger shared units. Peace psychology in Asia also will be defined by a great diversity of issues and approaches that allow for the past to be remembered and the future incorporating narratives that have yet to be defined. In short, while some peacebuilding approaches may share similarities with the West, others may be distinctly Asian.
References Appiah, A. K. (2006). Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers. USA: Penguin Books. Christie, D. J. (2006). What is peace psychology the psychology of? Journal of Social Issues, 62,1–17. Christie, D. J., Tint, B., Wagner, R. V., & Winter, D. D. (2008). Peace psychology for a peaceful world. American Psychologist, 63, 540–552. Christie, D. J., Wagner, R. V., & Winter, D. D. (Eds.). (2001). Peace, conflict, and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st century. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Dixit, A. K. (2004). Lawlessness and economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man (p. xiv). New York: Praeger. Hall, S. (1991). The local and the global: Globalization and ethnicity. In A. D. King (Ed.), Culture, globalization and the world system: Contemporary conditions for the representations of identity. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
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Haugerudbraaten, H. (1998). Peacebuilding: Six dimensions and two concepts. African Security Review. Retrieved April 2, 2008 from http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/ASR/7No6/Peacebuilding.html Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work-related values. Beverly Hills: Sage. Hunter, N. D. (2008). Human nature, science, and moral government: An exploratory essay. In A. Al-Ahsan & S. B. Young (Eds.), Guidance for good governance: Explorations in Qur’anic, scientific and cross-cultural approaches. Kuala Lumpur: IIUM Press. Huntington, S. (1996). The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Inoguchi, T., & Newman, E. (1997). Introduction: “Asian values” and democracy in Asia. Proceedings of the Conference held on 28 March 1997 at Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, as Part of the First Shizuoka Asia-Pacific Forum: The Future of the Asia-Pacific Region. Retrieved March 17, 2008 from http://www.unu.edu/unupress/asian-values.html Khong, C. O. (1997). Asian values: The debate revisited. Proceedings of the Conference held on 28 March 1997 at Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, as Part of the First Shizuoka Asia-Pacific Forum: The Future of the Asia-Pacific Region. Retrieved March 17, 2008 from http://www.unu.edu/ unupress/asian-values.html Koh, T. (1993). The 10 values which undergird East Asian strength and success. The International Herald Tribune, December 11–12 (pp. 6) Lund, M. (2001). A toolbox for responding to conflicts and building peace. In L. Reychler & T. Paffenholz (Eds.), Peacebuilding: A field guide (pp.16–20). Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers. MacNair, R. M. (2002). Perpetration-induced traumatic stress: The psychological consequences of killing. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Montiel, C. J. (2003). Peace psychology in Asia. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9, 195–218. Noor, N. M., & Moten, A. R. (2007). Conclusion: Clarifying the issues. In A. R. Moten & Noor, N. M. (Eds.). Terrorism, democracy, the West and the Muslim world (pp.293–299). Singapore: Thomson Learning. Norenzayan, A., Smith, E. E., Kim, B. & Nisbett, R. E. (2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26, 653–684. Oyserman, D., Koon, H. M., & Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 3–72. Quibria, M. G. (2006). Does governance matter? Yes, no or maybe: Some evidence from developing Asia. Kyklos, 59, 99–114. Reychler, L. (2001). From conflict to sustainable peacebuilding: Concepts and analytical tools. In L. Reychler & T. Paffenholz (Eds.). Peacebuilding: A field guide(pp. 3–15). Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers. Smock, D. R. (2006). Religious contributions to peacebuilding: When religion brings peace, not war. Retrieved June 14, 2008 from http://www.usip.org/pubs/peaceworks/pw55.pdf Triandis, H. C. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder: Westview Press. van der Merwe, H., & Vienings, T. (2001). Coping with Trauma. In L. Reychler & T. Paffenholz (Eds.), Peacebuilding: A field guide (pp. 343–351). Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner Publishers.
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Index
Note: The letters ‘f’, ‘t’ and ‘n’ following the locators refer to figures, tables and notes respectively.
A Abbott, J., 196 Abdullah, F. H., 164 Abinales, P., 9 Aborigines, 250, 256 Abraham, S., 24, 237 Abric, J. C., 22, 47 Abubakar, C., 176, 177 Aceh, peace zones established in, 9 Ackerman, P., 195 Activities node, 200 Adinarayan, S. P., 49 Adorno, T. W., 127 Adriano, L., 174 Advaita Vedanta, 302 Afrianty, D., 149 Afshar, H., 177 Agarie, N., 229 Ahluwalia, N. K., 51 Ahnaf, M. I., 136, 140 Aho, J. A., 140, 141 Akbar, M. J., 45 Al-Attas, S. M. N., 157 Al-Azhar University (Egypt), 157 Al-Faruqi, I., 157 Al-Ikhtilaf, 130, 134t, 135t, 136–140 Aliran, 169 Ali, T., 124 Alliance Party (UMNO/MCA/MIC), 162 Allport, G. W., 54, 231 Al-Mabuk, R. H., 223 Al-Mukmin, H., 163 Altemeyer, B., 54, 127, 259 Aman (peace), 78 Ambon conflict in Indonesia, 4, 85 “American dilemma,” 27 Anastasio, P. A., 233 Andaya, L. Y., 161, 163 Anderson, B., 23, 255, 266
Anderson, P., 247 Angeles, V., 175, 176, 177 Announce agency, 203, 207 AntiErap websites, 206 Anti-Japanese sentiments, 239 Anti-Marcos groups, 203 Anti-pluralist interpretations of Islam, 6 Anti-Semitism, 282 Anti-Sikh violence of 1984, 44 Anwar, S., 129, 140 Apartheid, 293 Appiah, A. K., 320 Appleby, R. S., 124 Applications of peace psychology in Asia, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 13 Aquino, Benigno, Jr., assassination of, 202, 203 Aquino, Corazon C., 203 Arab conquest of Sind (711–715), 44 Arendt, H., 127 Arillo, C., 204, 205 ARMM, see Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Armstrong, K., 126 Armstrong, T. L., 54 Arnado, M., 176, 177 Asahi-Shimbun (2006), 240 articles including key terms in, 241f Asia as conflict area, 221–222 “Asian values”, concept of, 310 Asia’s contribution to world peace psychology concept of harmony, 299–300 shame and saving face, 297–299 diverse cultural know-how, 300–301 generating systemic change with global scope, 296–297 global terrorism, 297 global interdependence, 292–294 humiliation, phenomenon of, 293
323
324 Asia’s contribution to world peace psychology (cont.) linguistic change of 1757, 293 nondualism and unity infinity symbol, or M¨obius Strip (∞), 295 protecting cultural difference, 300 unity in diversity harvesting an ontological frame, 301–303 use of a large-scale geohistorical lens, 290–292 DMA, 290 “era of equality in dignity,” 292 “era of ranked honor,” 291 rise of dualism, 291 Asmal, K., 111 Asmal, L., 111 Atsumi, E., 229 Atsumi, T., 4, 5, 11, 12, 15, 21, 23, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 59, 112, 237–247, 294, 313 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), 176, 190, 192 Awaking theory of ideology, 256 Axial coding, 200, 201 Azad Kashmir, 66, 77 Azra, A., 129, 149, 150, 151, 152 B Baba, N. A., 68 Babri Masjid, 14, 45–46, 47, 48, 54 Bachman, B. A., 233 Bahrissalim, 151, 153 Bai, C. -Q., 255 Baileo Foundation, 91 Bajunid, O. F., 153 Baker, W. E., 276 Bakshi Ghulam Mohammad’s ministership, 67 Baku Bae Market, 97 Bali bombings, 125 Banaji, M. R., 25, 280, 281 Bandura, A., 195, 196, 214 Banerjee, S., 60 Bangsa Moro Army, 175 Bangsa Moro Women’s Professional and Employees’ Association, 176 Bannon, I., 177 Bano, S., 51 “Bargain of 1957,” 162 Bargh, J. A., 284 Bar-Tal, D., 105, 109, 110, 111, 112, 127 Basa˜nez, M., 277
Index Bashari, L., 136 Basu, A., 46 Basu, J., 51 Basu, T., 43, 45 Batistiana, B. S., 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 173–192, 301, 315 Baumeister, R. F., 115, 116, 119, 221, 223, 224, 227, 228 Bauzon, K., 176 Beakley, B., 301 Before and After Independence: A Study of Racial and Communal Attitudes, 49 Belief in a just world (BJW), 224, 225 BELIEF IN MNLF IDEOLOGY, 185 Bender, F. L., 290 Benet-Martinez, V., 22 Bennink, G. H., 109, 110, 111 Berkowitz, L., 11 Berry, J. W., 24 Bhargava R., 46 Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), 45–46, 47, 59 Biculturalism, 27, 28, 30 Big-China-ism, 261 Bilali, R., 51 BJW, see Belief in a just world (BJW) Boeckman, R. J., 225 Boland, B. J., 148 Bombo Radyo Network, 204 Bond, M. H., 22, 279, 294 Bose, S., 67, 68, 69 Bosnia and Herzegovina conflict, 229 Bourgeoisie (rich capitalists), 276, 282 Bouta, T., 177 Boutros-Ghali. B., 74, 76 Bradbury, T. N., 223 Bradley, F. H., 302 Brand-Jacobsen, K. F., 290 Branscombe, N. R., 232 Brass, P., 43, 45, 46, 47, 54, 55, 56, 68, 71, 72 Brasted, H., 46 Braun, V., 53–54 Brecke, P., 109, 110, 114 Bretherton, D., 108, 133 BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), 276 British colonialism in Malaya, 162 See also Malay-Chinese relations in Malaysia The British Journal of Psychology, 49 Brown, G., 85, 86, 88 Brown, M. A., 299 Brown, R., 54, 229, 231 Bruinessen, M., 125, 154 Buber, M., 296
Index Buddha, 243 Budi (kindness, good deed), 167 Buendia, R., 173 Bukhari, F., 73–74 Bumiputera (sons and daughters of the soil), 161, 165 Burns, P., 106 Burton, J., 109 Bush, George (President of US), 79, 139 C Cagoco-Guiam, R., 175 Cairns, E., 58, 105, 112, 226, 230 Calling agency, 203, 207, 216 Canavan, D., 227 Capitalism, 29, 124, 162 Capps, L., 178 Cardinal Sin’s public call for People’s Power, 8 Cardis, P. A., 223 Castano, E., 229 Categorization of science, 238t Cehajic, S., 229, 230, 231, 232, 233 Center for Civilizational Dialogue (University of Malaya), 169 The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, Eisler (1987), 291 Chang, H., 255 Chang, M., 24, 249, 250 Chang, M. K., 251, 253, 263 Chapman, A. R., 230 Chariot march (Rath Yatra), 46 See also Babri Masjid Che Man,W. K., 173, 174, 178 Chen, E. C. -H., 297 Chen Shui-bian, 7, 252, 253, 256 Chhaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar (Pakistan’s Defense Minister), 79 Chiang Ching-Kuo (Lee Teng-hui’s successor), 251, 252 Chiang Kei-Shek (leader of KMT ), 250 Chinese and Malays, similarities, 167–168 Chinese consciousness, beliefs of, 255 Chinese Nationalist Party, Kuomintang (KMT), 249 Chinese resentments in Malaya, 165 Chinese/Taiwanese consciousness, 253–256 Chinese consciousness, beliefs of, 255 domains of conflict, 256 Chinese traditional values, 277 Chiu, C. Y., 22 Choi, I., 22, 31 Chopra, S., 67 Chopra, V. D., 45
325 Chou Fu (animosity toward the rich), 279 Christie, D. J., 3, 8, 9, 21, 51, 55, 100, 132, 133, 165, 167, 289, 293, 307, 308, 314, 316, 319, l 249 Chuang, Y. C., 266 Churchill, W., 34 Civil disobedience, 203, 205 Civil Islam, 158, 300, 311 Clarke, V., 54 Coding procedure, 199 Grounded Theory, 199 qualitative software to aid, 199 Cognitive biases and empathy, reduction of Hewstone and Cehajic’s study, 230–231 Tam’s study, 230 See also Forgiveness for conflict resolution Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger), 280 Cohen, D., 226 Cohen, S. P., 93 Cold war, 4, 5, 15, 21, 29, 58, 132, 249, 253, 266, 289, 308, 311 Collective memory for reconciliation purposes and building peace implications, 120–121 literature on reconciliation, 108–112 distortion of collective memory, 115–116 needs, theories on, 109–110 psychological processes, 111 role of collective memory in reconciliation, conceptual model, 113f role of memory in reconciliation, 112–115 Shriver’s model of reconciliation, 112 top-down approach, 110 trading off memories, 116–120 “community voluntary reconciliation,” 117 Tanjung Priok case, reconciliation context, 105–108 Piagam Islah (“reconciliation agreement”), 108 Tim Pencari Fakta (fact-revealing team), 107 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 107 Commission on Elections (COMELEC), 203 Communalism, 45, 46, 52, 69 Conaway, C. P., 177 “Concerned kiwi,” use of, 26 Confidence-building measures (CBMs), 76–77 Conflict intervention, strategies of, 76
326 Confucianism, 167, 285, 311 Confucian tradition of acceptance of hierarchy, 310 Connor, W., 71 Consciousness, definition, 255 “Consciousness of Being Separate and Unique,” 258 Consciousness of national identity, 258 “KMT Legitimacy,” 258, 260t, 262f “Small but Beautiful Taiwan,” 258 See also Ideologies and relevant factors of (study 1) “Conservative-Exclusionist Muslims,” 130 Cooley, F. L., 87 Corbin, J., 198, 199, 200 Cory, 203 Coser, L. A., 290 Coyle, A., 14 Crocker, J., 241, 258 Cultural Mechanics of Fundamentalism: Religion as Ideology, Divided Identities and Violence in Post-Gandhi India, 53 Cultural nationalism, 45 Culture, definition, 7 Culture/social representations/and peacemaking “American dilemma,” 27 biculturalism, 27 history as essential ingredient in the “imagined community” of nationhood, 22–23 “symbolic reserve,” 23 social dominance orientation, 27 social representations of world history across 24 societies, 30 steps to operationalizing social representations of history step one: ascertain the symbolic landscape of history, 23–25 step two: describe discursive repertoires in dialogue with historical symbols, 25–28 step three: operationalizing historical representations as legitimizing myths or group-based ideologies, 28–31 step four: beyond representations to action: ethics of research as good social practice, 31–32 symbolic representations of culture, 21–22
Index “meta-system of social representations,” 22 social representations theory, 22 “the New Zealand dilemma,” 27 D Dabla, B. A., 73, 74 Dahlan, H. M., 167 Dalbert’s theory (2002), 224 Danziger, K., 132 “The Dao,” 302 Dasen, P. R., 24 Dasgupta, S., 51 Datta, P., 43 Dawson, P., 66 Delhi accord, 67 Delhi agreement, Article 370 in 1952, 67 Delhi Sultanate (1211–1504), 44 Democracy, 4, 6, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 67, 69, 70, 124, 137, 150, 151, 153, 155, 196, 214, 251, 252, 256, 293, 311, 317 Democratic People’s Party (DPP), 249 Deng, X., 29, 243, 277 De Rosa, A. S., 23, 26 Desai, Hitendra, 45 Design science, 238 Deutsch, M., 127, 227 Developing countries attitudes towards rich, 279–285 GDP per capita and social cynicism, correlation between, 279 income gaps/interclass conflicts/social unrest, 282–285 inequality/suspicion of corruption, 279 economic development/rise of materialism, 276–279 income gap/corruption/negative feeling towards rich, 278–279 modernization, impact on value, 277–278 Devos, T., 25 Dey, S., 51 Dharavi (Asia’s largest slum), 52 Dhofier, Z., 148, 154 “Dialogical unity” (Martin Buber), 295, 296 Diaz-Guerrero, R., 255 Dittmar, H., 275 Dittmer, L., 265 Diverse cultural know-how, 300–301 Divide and rule, British policy of, 4, 44, 60, 87, 161, 309 Divide et impera (divide and rule), 4, 87, 88 Dixit, A. K., 319
Index Dixon, D. N., 58 DMA, see Dualism-ManichaeismArmageddon syndrome (DMA) Dogra rule, 66, 67 Domingo-Robles, L., 205 Double identity, 249, 253, 257, 258, 262 Dovidio, J. F., 168, 169, 233 Downey, J., 195, 196 Downing, J. D., 196 DPP sovereign period, 250 Drew, P., 16 Dualism-Manichaeism-Armageddon syndrome (DMA), 290 Ducados, H., 177 Duckitt, J., 28 Dutch colonization period (1624–1662), 250 Duvall, J., 195 E Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR), 174 EDCOR, see Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR) EDSA Shrine, 207 Edwards, D., 54 Edwards, J. A., 222 Effendy, B., 157 Eidelson, J. I., 127 Eidelson, R. J., 127 Eisler, R., 291 Ellens, J. H., 54, 126 Embree, A. T., 44 Emperor Hirohito, 243 Eng, P., 195, 196 Engels, F., 276 Engerman, S. L., 299 Engineer, A. A., 43, 45, 54 Enright, R. D., 222, 223 Enrile, Juan Ponce (Defense Minister), 203, 204, 205 Enriquez, V. G., 31, 55 Epistemic science, 12, 238 Epstein, Y., 227 Equality in dignity, era of, 292 Erap jokes, 206 Ernest, A., 177 Esses, V. M., 54 Estrada, Joseph, 206 Estuar, Ma. R. E., 6, 16, 195–217, 301, 313, 318 Ethnonationalism, 71 Exline, J. J., 223, 224, 227, 228
327 F Faaland, J., 163 Face (public self-image), 298 Fair, C., 75 Falk, E., 110 Falun Gong, 196 Fawa’id, Kiai (Islamic religious teacher), 8 Feillard, A., 153 Fenton, N., 195, 196 Ferguson, N., 230 Ferguson’s study on effects of apology, 230 Festinger, L., 280 Fidel V. Ramos (Armed Forces Vice Chief), 203 Filipinos, 202, 203, 207 Fincham, F. D., 223 First International Conference on Muslim Education in Mecca in 1977, 157 Fischer, K. W., 298 Fischer, R., 53 Fisher, J. D., 222 Fisher, R. J., 100 Fiske, S. T., 232 Five beliefs Chinese consciousness, 255 Indonesian Muslims, 127–128 Flip-flop technique, 199 “Flying with fraternal wings” (Atsumi), 33 Forgiveness for conflict resolution Asia as conflict area, 221–222 Korea-Japan debate, 222 benefits and risks/costs, 222–223 behavioral component, 222 psychological component, 222 group conflicts and forgiveness, 228–229 interpersonal/group conflicts, 229–230 effects of apology, Ferguson’s study on, 230 group apologies, 229–230 social psychological variables of intergroup forgiveness, 230–233 cognitive biases and empathy, reduction of, 230 forgiveness towards an out-group, 230–233 intergroup contact, 231–232 recategorization, 232–233 TRC, 229 variables tested for, 228 justice and, 224 positive relationships of justice and forgiveness, 224–225 belief in a just world (BJW), 224
328 Forgiveness for conflict resolution (cont.) Dalbert’s theory, 224 motives of forgiveness, 225 priming of justice on forgiveness, effects of, 225f theory of Schwartz (1992), 224 watermark image of Justitia, 224 third-party effects: conciliation and retributive justice, 226–227 Northern Ireland conflict, study of, 226 third party’s mention of victim responsibility, 227f social control and, 227–228 repeated competitions against unforgiving and forgiving others, 228f successful forgiveness, 227 and social control retributive justice, 227–228 Forgiveness (social-psychological phenomenon), 222 anxiety and depression, reduced levels of, 223 benefits and risks/costs of, 222–223 BJW and, correlation, 224 definition of, 223 hollow forgiveness, 223 motives of, 225 partner’s behaviors, effect on, 223 psychological component, 222 risk of, 227 successful forgiveness, 227 true forgiveness, 223 See also Forgiveness for conflict resolution Forrester, G., 147 Foss, D., 195 Freedman, S. R., 222, 223 Frenkel-Brunswick, E., 127 Frerks, G., 177 Friedman, T. L., 292 Fromm, E., 302 Fukuyama, F., 30, 312 Fung, H., 297 Future of peace psychology in Asia balancing tradition and modernity, 312–314 collectivist values/social violence, 310 Confucian tradition of acceptance of hierarchy, 310 peacebuilding across social layers: individual, group, and society, 314–316 religious factor in Asian public life, 311–312
Index structural peacebuilding: making governance structures sensitive to communal and local issues, 316–319 structural violence and the vestiges of colonialism in Asia, 309–310 tiers of developmental transition, 308 “us–them” distinction, 309 G Gaertner, S. L., 168, 233 Galtung, J., 8, 9, 11, 76, 132, 290 Gandhi, M. K., 44, 45, 60 Gangjee, K., 51 Gardner, M., 49, 50 Gastardo-Conaco, C., 24, 31 Gaur, S. D., 51 Geertz, C., 22, 154 Gelfand, M. J., 221 Gellner, E., 251 Genocide, 71, 294, 295 Genovese, E. D., 299 Gergen, K. J., 132 Gerstein, L. H., 57, 59 Ghilzai, S., 73 Ghor (1151–1192), 44 Ghosh, E. S. K., 43, 48, 50, 51 Giddens, A., 124, 131 Gini index, 278, 285 Global Conflict Resolution through Positioning Analysis, 16 Global interdependence, 292–294 humiliation, phenomenon of, 293 linguistic change of 1757, 293 Global terrorism, 297 Global Warming, 243 GNAT, see Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT) Godhra incident, 47, 48 Godse, Nathuram, 45 Gold, J. G., 223 Golwalkar, M. S., 54 Gongxi Facai (May you make more money), 277 Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT), 281 Gonzalez, R., 229 Gooptu, N., 44 Governance, definition, 316 Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), 173–193 Greening (Islamization), 88 Greenwald, A. G., 280, 281 Gregory, S., 196
Index Gries, P. H., 29, 35 Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 277, 278, 279, 280 Grounded theory, 198, 199, 201 GRP, see Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) Gumpert, P., 227 Gurin, G., 255, 256 Gurin, P., 255, 256 Gurr. T. R., 68 H Habibie, B. J. (President), 89, 107 Hagiwara, S., 232 Hajj, 58 Hakka, 250, 251, 252, 256, 263 Halabi, S., 168 Halim, S., 162, 163 Hall, S., 313 Hamberger, J., 230 Hamidah, A., 165 Han Chinese, 250 Hanke, K., 30 Hardin, C. D., 283 Hardy, C., 126 Hardy, P., 45 Harmony, concept of, 299–300 Harre, R., 16, 173, 174 Harvey, O. J., 231 Hasan, R., 51 Hassan, M. K., 51 Hastings, S., 115, 116, 119 Haugerudbraaten, H., 316 Hayami, Y., 174 Hayes, N., 22 Hazratbal crisis, 67 He, Y., 29 Hefner, R. W., 124, 149, 158 Heim, S. M., 165 Henderson, J., 164 Heng, P. K., 164 Herz, J. H., 291 Hewitt, V., 69 Hewston, M., 231 Hidayat, N., 136 Higgins, T. R., 24 Hill, P. C., 54, 126 Hilton, D., 22, 30, 59, 237 Hindu Mahasabha, 45 Hindu–Muslim relations in India (South Asia) Before and After Independence: A Study of Racial and Communal Attitudes, 49 early trends and mainstream developments, 48–50
329 in modern India, cultural/ historical/political/social contexts, 44–48 Babri Masjid, incident, 45–46 communalism, 45 death of Gandhi, 45 Godhra incident, 46 Muslim League, 45 Sangh Parivar, 45 multidisciplinary teams of Indian academics, 49–50 peace psychological perspective of Hindu–Muslim research, 51–55 The Psychology of the Hindu–Muslim Riots, 48 suggestions for future research development and operationalisation of context-sensitive measures, 57–58 interethnic engagement, 55–56 symbolic threats, 58 urban versus rural India, 57 towards syncretic cultures, 58–60 trends in psychological research, contributions central to intergroup, 50–51 field study in Dharavi (Asia’s largest slum), 52 study of relative deprivation and intergroup attitudes, 50 study of religiosity and its correlates, 50–51 study of stereotypes and intergroup attributions in south India, 50 “Ultimate Attribution Error” (Pettigrew), 50–51 Hindu Social Identities and Imagined Past: The Face-off Between Ram Temple and Martyred Mosque at Ayodhya (Tripathi ), 52 Hindutva, 15, 35, 44, 45–48, 53, 54, 57–58 Ho, D. Y. F., 298 Hobsbawm, E., 72, 266 Hofstede, G., 21, 310 Hoklo and Hakka immigrants (Han Chinese), 250 Hoklo (Fu-Kien), Chinese dialects, 250, 256 “Hollow forgiveness,” 223 Holocaust, 23, 232, 239 Holt, M., 177 Hong, Y. Y., 22 Hood, R. W., 54, 126 Hood, W. R., 231 Hopkins, N., 23, 46, 266
330 Horikoshi, H., 154 Hornsey, M. J., 58, 229 Horowitz, D., 71, 127 Hsiao, H. H., 253 Huang, C. -C., 255, 256 Huang, L. L., 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 24, 29, 35, 249, 250, 251, 252, 255, 257, 258, 261, 265 Huang, L.-S., 255 Huismans, S., 225 Hulme, D., 164 Human agency definition, 196, 197 and technology interfacing between, 197f shaping of, 213f and use of technology during people power II, 207 announce agency, 207 calling agency, 207 mobilizing agency, 207 organizing agency, 207 street agency, 207 symbolic agency, 207 virtual agency, 207 See also Human-technology interface Human needs theory, 109 Human rights, 47, 78, 114, 116, 118, 125, 136, 140, 142, 153, 155, 196, 202, 214, 277, 292–295, 293, 299, 300, 317 Human Rights Declaration, Article 1 of, 293 Human-technology interface across episodes, 212f in people power I, 204–206, 204f amplified urgency to act, 206 causes and goals, 204–205 changing minds and action, 205 creating instability and doubt, 205 disseminated information to a wider audience, 205 formation of identity, 205 formation of organizations and alliances, 205 political and social awareness, 204 in Philippine, results analysis of words, phrase, and sentences, 199–200 assignment of attributes for categories, 200 axial coding, 200 Episode 1: use of active nonviolence and technology to oust a dictator, 202–206
Index Episode 2: use of active nonviolence and technology to remove corrupt ruler, 206–211 Hunter, N. D., 317 Huntington, S., 147, 276 Huo, Y. J., 225 Husaini, A., 136 Hutnik, N., 43, 48, 50, 51 Hwang, I. W., 163 Hwang, K., 55 Hwang, K. K., 265 Hwang, T. S., 249 I IAT, see Implicit Association Test (IAT) Ibrahim, Anwar, 196 Ide, S., 298 “Ideal state” of liberalism, 30 Identification, definition, 255, 256 Identity scores of Japanese students, 242f Ideologies and relevant factors of (study 1), 257–263 “KMT Legitimacy,” 258 measures affection of national identity, 258 consciousness of national identity, 258 imagination toward future nationhood, 258 national identity, 257–258 personality factors related to national identity, 258–259 methods questionnaire from participants, 257 results Bell and M shape, 261–263 differences among national identity, 259–261 See also Taiwan, national identity in Ideologies/personality/political party support by national identity, 260t, 263f “Imagined community,” 255 The immigration period (1662–1683), 250 Imperialism, 29, 134t, 139, 140 Implicit Association Test (IAT), 281 Implicit/explicit self-esteem, 283–284 INC, see Indian National Congress (INC) Income gap/corruption/negative feeling towards rich, 278–279 Gini index of the developing/developed countries, 278 See also Developing countries
Index Independence movement in Aceh, 221 in Tibet/Uighur regions, 221 Indian constitution Article 306A, 67 Indian National Congress (INC), 44, 45, 52 India-Pakistan peace talks, 79 war (1965, 1971), 67 The indigenization period, 250 Indonesian Council of Ulama, 125 Indonesian Islam, streams of, 130 Indonesian Islamic education, interreligious harmony/peacebuilding institutions of Muslim education in Indonesia, 148–150 madrasahs/pesantrens, 148 STAIN/IAIN/UIN, 149 Muhammadiyah’s educational network, 152–153 Nahdlatul Ulama: Indonesia’s Pesantren Tradition, 153–156 outbreak of communal violence in Situbondo, East Java, 154–155 state efforts in Islamic higher education, 150 state system of Islamic colleges and universities, 151–152 civic education program, 150–151 success of Muslim schools and colleges, 156–159 implementation of Shariah law, 158–159 Indonesian Muslims, violence/social justice/ peacebuilding Indonesia: state/society religion in tension, 123–126 preliminary results construction of enemy, 135–137 discourse on violence, 137 social justice, 138–139 recurring themes in three Muslim media regarding enemy/violence/social justice/ intergroup relations, 134t–135t religious radicalism, psychology of, 126–133 “Conservative-Exclusionist Muslims,” 130 features of peace psychology, 132 five beliefs, 127 gaps, identified, 128 “Liberal Muslims,” 129 method of study, 129–131
331 Moghaddam’s six-floor staircase to terrorism, 128 “Radical Muslims,” 129 social constructionist psychology and, 131–133 streams of Indonesian Islam, 130 types of violence, 130–131 social justice, 138–139 Indonesian Society for Pesantren and Community Development, 155 Indo-Pak peace process, conflict transformation ‘four-point solution,’ 75 peace strategy: peacemaking and peacebuilding, 76–79 Industrialization process, effects on, 284 Information and communication technologies (ICT), 195, 197, 318 Infra-humanization, 230 Inglehart, R., 124, 276, 277 Inoguchi, T., 309, 310 Institute of Human Services of Interfaith Community (NGO), 155 Institutionalised riot systems, 56, 60 Integrated Threat Theory, 51 Interclass conflicts, income gaps and social unrest, 282–285 Interfaith institute Interfidei (Institut Dialog Antar Iman), Yogyakarta, 155 Interfaith Spiritual Fellowship, 169 Intergroup forgiveness, social psychological variables, 230–233 cognitive biases and empathy, reduction of, 230 forgiveness towards an out-group, 230–233 Intergroup contact “The robbers cave experiment,” 231–232 intergroup contact, 231–232 path model intergroup forgiveness, 231f recategorization, 232–233 reduction of cognitive biases and empathy, 230 Hewstone and Cehajic’s study, 230–231 Tam’s study, 230 See also Forgiveness for conflict resolution ‘Interim system,’ 67 See also Jammu and Kashmir, political violence and peacebuilding International relations theory, 291 Internet, 126, 165, 196, 197, 198, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210t, 211, 215, 275, 315
332 Interpersonal/group conflicts, 229–230 effects of apology, Ferguson’s study on, 230 group apologies, 229–230 In the Minds of Men: The Study of Human Behaviour and Social Tensions in India (Murphy, Gardner), 49 Islah charter, 117, 118 Islah (forgiveness), principle of, 312 Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam), 125 Islamic radicalism, 124, 128, 129 Islamic separatist movements, 221 Islamic Troops Command (Komando Laskar Islam), 125 Islam-ul, K., 73 Iwai, A., 222 Iyer, P., 9 J Jabidah massacre (1968), 175 See also Moro women’s participation during/after MNLF-GRP War Jabri, V., 141 Jackson, E., 151, 153 Jackson, L. M., 54 Jacobsen, C. G., 290 Jaffrelot, C., 45, 46, 54 Jaggi, V., 50 Jakarta-based Center for Pesantren and Democracy Studies (CePDeS), 155 Jalal, A., 45 Jammu and Kashmir, political violence and peacebuilding conflict transformation and Indo-Pak peace process ‘four-point solution,’ 75 peace strategy: peacemaking and peacebuilding, 76–79 explaining violent separatism Dabla, Nayak, and Islam-ul (2000), 73 ethnic factor, 71–72 Kashmiri Pandit Hindus, effect of violence, 74 kidnapping of Rubya Saeed in 1989, 70 ‘Primordialism,’ 71 sexual abuse, 74 violence and human suffering, 73–74 Kashmir conflict, 66f anatomy of political violence, 68 Azad Kashmir, 66 onset of present crisis, 68–70 partition and accession, 66–68
Index Delhi accord, 67 Delhi agreement, Article 370 in 1952, 67 ‘interim system,’ 67 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), 66 Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), 69 Japan, opening of (1854), 242 Japan and Asia, discontinuity between, 241–242 Japanese students, identity scores of, 242f scales of identity, 242 See also Japan and China, reconciliation of conflict Japan and China, reconciliation of conflict apolitical representations, 243 events and figures evaluated in terms of historical value, 243 discontinuity between Japan and Asia, 241–242 history in Japan revisited, 239–241 “Problem/Cognition of History,” 239 “The Nanjing Incident/Massacre,” 239–240 Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun, influence on Japanese public opinion, 239–241 “Na¨ıve Universalism” “talking to the Chinese delegation,” 245–246 “talking to Chinese friend,” 245 “to help high school students,” 244–245 narrative-design science, 237–238 towards peace in Asia, 246–247 past and present, 242–243 history associated with school subjects, 242 since 20th century, 239 Japanese colonization period, 250 Japanese national identity, 240–241 Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform (2001), 239 Japan Teachers Union, 239 Jeelani, A., 73 Jefferey, P., 58 Jefferey, R., 58 Jeong, H., 75 Jha, P. S., 46, 68 JKLF, see Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Johan Galtung’s Transcend Theory, 9 Jost, J., 259 Judd, M., 174
Index Junichiro Koizumi (Prime Minister of Japan), 243 Justitia (ancient Roman symbol of justice), 224, 225f K Kadian, R., 67 Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Associates, Inc. (KFPDAI), 178 Kagami, T., 222 Kak, M. L., 73 Kakar, S., 43, 46, 59 Kaku, M., 289 Kameda, M., 229 Kamise, Y., 232 Kao, L., 266 Kappen, D. M., 232 Karcher, W., 154 Karl Marx, 276, 282, 283 Karremans, J. C., 224, 225, 233 Kashmir, India/Pakistan clashes over possession, 221 Kashmir, psychosocial impact of violence on people, 72–74 See also Jammu and Kashmir, political violence and peacebuilding Kashmir Accord (1975), 67 Kashmir conflict, 66f anatomy of political violence, 68 Azad Kashmir, 66 onset of present crisis, 68–70 organized violence, 69 pro-independence JKLF, 69 partition/accession, 66–68 Delhi accord, 67 Delhi agreement, Article 370 in 1952, 67 ‘interim system,’ 67 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), 66 See also Jammu and Kashmir, political violence and peacebuilding Kashmiri Muslim uprising, 69 Kashmiriyat, 69 Kashmir Shaivism, 302 Kelman, H. C., 93, 94 Kemmelmeier, M., 310 Kenworthy, J., 166 KFPDAI, see Kadtabanga Foundation for Peace and Development Associates, Inc. (KFPDAI) Khan, S. S., 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 25, 28, 29, 32, 35, 43–60, 308, 309
333 Khan, W., 65–79 Khisbiyah, Y., 10, 13, 17, 123–142, 300, 311, 312 Khmer Rouge, Combodia, 283 Khong, C. O., 310, 318 Khoo, B. T., 164 Kim, B., 310 Kim, S., 265 Kim, S. H., 221 King, M., 25 Kirkwood, S., 26, 28 Kitab kuning, 148 Klandermans, B., 215 KMT, see Kuomintang (KMT), Chinese Nationalist Party Koh, T., 310 Koon, H. M., 310 Korea-Japan debate, 222 Treaty on Basic Relations (1965), 222 “Kristenisasi” or forced proselytization, 135t, 136 Kronberger, N., 22, 59 Kronstadt, K. A., 159 Kumar, R., 43, 48, 50, 51 Kuomintang (KMT), Chinese Nationalist Party, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 255, 256, 258, 259, 260t, 261, 262, 263, 269 Kupwara (village of widows), 73 Kuzel, A., 178, 179 L Lai, T. -H., 250 Lakoff, G., 48 Lal, V., 43, 44, 46 Lambert, R., 195, 297 L´aszl´o, J., 22, 23, 30, 34 Lawrence, B., 24, 76, 77, 237 LDP, see Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Lee, D., 165 Lee, N., 16 Lee Teng-hui (President of Taiwan in 1996), 7, 251, 252, 256 Lee, Y. -T., 229 Leith, K. P., 227 Lenski, G., 284 Lessy, Z., 86, 91 Leung, K., 21, 22, 51, 279 Levine, P. A., 299 Levinson, D. J., 127 Li, J., 298 Li, M. C., 30, 250, 253 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), 239
334 “Liberal Muslims,” 129, 136 Liberman, V., 297 “Library of infamy” (Aho), 140 Likert scale, 7-point, 252, 259 Lin, C. -L., 266 Lin, H. L., 251, 263 Lin, T. J., 266 Lin, Z. Z., 251, 263 Lindner, E. G., 7, 11, 289–303, 320 Line of control (LOC), 66 Lingga, A., 174 Lipkus, I., 223 Liu, J. H., 21–36 Liu, S. H., 31 Liviatan, I., 60 LOC, see Line of control (LOC) Long, W. J., 109, 110, 114 Louis, W., 174 Ludden, D. E., 43, 45, 54 Ludlow, P., 301 Luhtanen, R., 241, 258 Luis “Chavit” Singson (Ilocos Sur Governor), 206 Lumicao-Santos, A., 205 Lund, M., 315 Lu Xun, see Zhou Shuren (1881-1936) M McCauley, C., 126, 127, 229 McClure, J., 24 McCreanor, T. M., 25, 27 McCullough, M. E., 222 McFefries, C., 261 McGhee, D. E., 281 McGuire, J., 46 Machacek, D. W., 158 Mackie, D. M., 58 McLernon, F., 226 MacMichael Treaty, 162 MacNair, R. M., 306 Madjid, M., 108, 118, 152 Madrasahs, 148–150, 153–154 Maha Ghosananda (Buddhist monk), 8 Mahatma Gandhi, see Gandhi, M. K. Mahmud of Ghazni (999–1026), 44 Malacanang, 207 Malaya (Free Press), 202 Malayan Chinese Association (MCA), 162 Malayan Indian Congress (MIC), 162 Malay-Chinese relations in Malaysia history/nature of actions following riots, 164 Alliance Party (UMNO/MCA/MIC), 162
Index “Bargain of 1957,” 162 British colonialism, 162 MacMichael Treaty, 162 politics of ethnic identity, 165–166 present scenario, 164–165 resentments, Chinese, 165 peacebuilding, psychocultural approach civil society, role of, 168–170 common cultural/religious values, 167–168 Vision 2020, 170 Malaysian Interfaith Network, 169 Malaysia Youth and Students Democratic Movement, 169 Malik, I., 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 85–102, 153, 311, 315, 318 Malino II Peace Agreement, 90 Malinowski, B., 22, 266 Malle B. F., 54 Malloy, T. E., 222 Maluku conflict, 85 Maluku war, 89, 93 Mamali, C., 53 Mandarin (official language of China), 250–251 Mandela, 293–294 Manindigan, 205 Mann, C., 34 Manzi, J., 229 Mao (former leader of the Chinese Communist Party), 126, 282–283 Maori treaty, 26 Maori war, 27, 28 Margallo, S., 176 Marghoob, M. A., 73 Marshall, M. G., 297 Martial law, KMT, 250, 251 Martin, B., 195 Mart´ın-Bar´o, I., 31 Marty, M. M., 159 Marx, K., 275, 276, 282, 283 Marxism, 283 Marx’s theory, 276, 283 Maslow’s theory of hierarchical human needs, 277 Materialism/post-materialism, 277 Matsumoto, D. R., 298 May, R. J., 147, 175, 176 Mayaram, S., 46 Ma Ying-Jeou (President of Taiwan), 250 Meiji Modernization (1868), 242, 243 Meiji restoration, 34 Meilidao incident (1979), 251
Index Melayu-Zionist, 134t, 136 Mellor, D., 108 Meraj, A., 73 Mercado, E., 176 Merwe, V. D., 109 “Meta-system of social representations,” 22 MIC, see Malayan Indian Congress (MIC) Middleton, D., 54 Militant Hinduism, new reincarnation of Hinduism, 53 Millennium Development Goals Indicators, 297 Miller, A. H., 255 Miller, W. I., 293 Mills, D., 27 Mindanao conflict situation and MNLF, 174–176 Mindanao Island, 221 Ming dynasty, 292 loyalists, 250 Mingnan (Hoklo), 250, 256 Mirza Ghulam Ahmad from India, 125 Mishra, R. C., 51 Mishra, S., 51 Mishra, Y., 70 Mitchell, C., 9, 75 MNLF, see Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) MNLF–GRP Final Peace Accord (1996), 173, 189, 191 MNLF–GRP War, see Moro women’s participation during/after MNLF-GRP War Mobilizing agency, 207 Modernization theory (Inglehart), 277–278 Moerdani, L. B. (commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces), 106 Moeschberger, S. L., 58 Moghadam, V., 177 Moghaddam, F., 14, 16, 128, 229 Montiel, C. J., 3–18, 23, 51, 159, 195–217, 249, 285, 289, 293, 301, 307, 308, 311, 313, 316, 318, 319, 320 Montoya, R., 177 Moreno, A., 277 Moriya, T., 222 “Moro,” 173 Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), 11, 173 in Philippines, 5 Moro women’s participation during/after MNLF-GRP War
335 Mindanao conflict situation and MNLF, background, 174–176 Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), 176 Bangsa Moro Army, 175 Bangsa Moro Women’s Professional and Employees’ Association, 176 Economic Development Corporation (EDCOR), 174 Jabidah massacre (1968), 175 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), 175 Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD), 176 Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD), 176 positioning theory, 173–174 research, objectives/method data collection/analysis procedures, 180–181 focus group discussions (FGD), 180–181 KFPDAI, 178–179 narrative method, 178 participants, 178–180 Philippines, Maguindanao, 179f questions, 180 women participants, 180t results challenges/frustrations/struggles, 190 formation of peace/development of communities, 188–190 men’s FGD results, 184t participation in MNLF–GRP War, 186–188 Peace and Development Communities (PDCs), 189 reasons for joining MNLF, 185–186 women’s FGD results, 182t–183t role Theory, 173 women during/after war, 176–177 Morris, M. W., 22, 221 Moscovici, S., 14, 21, 22, 33, 47 Moten, A. R., 311 Mother Theresa, 243 Movement for JUST World, 169 Mr. & Ms. magazine, 202 Mubarok, A., 108 Mughal Empire (1526–1858), 44 Muhammad, H., 156 Muhammadiyah, 147 Muhammadiyah’s educational network, 152–153
336 Mujahideen ( Muslim fighter or warrior of Allah), 186 Mukherjee, H., 164 Muluk, H., 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 17, 85–102, 105–121, 132, 300, 311, 312, 314, 315, 318 Murphy, G., 49 Musharraf, Pervez (President of Pakistan), 75 Muslim League, 4, 45 Muzaffar, C., 166, 167, 168 Myers, R. H., 250 Myrdal, G., 27 N Nadler, A., 60, 109, 111, 112, 120, 222 Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Indonesia’s Pesantren Tradition, 153–156 Muslim social welfare organizations, 147 “Na¨ıve universalism,” 29 Nakamura, F., 177 Nakamura, M., 153 NAMFREL, see National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) Nandy, A., 43, 46 Nanjing Massacre, 4, 15, 29, 239, 240 in China during World War II, 15 Narrative science, 238 “Narratives of origin,” 22 National Alliance for Freedom of Faith and Religion, 125 National Bureau of Statistics of China (2005), 277 National Cheng-chi University, 253 National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), 203 National Institute of Research Excellence in Maori Development and Education, 32 Nationalism, 253 Nationality formation, definition, 67 Native Taiwanese, 250 Nayak, S., 73 Needs, classification (Burton), 109 Newman, E., 309, 310 New Order regime of President Suharto (1965–1998), 147 New Zealand dilemma, 27 Ng, S. H., 21, 31, 34 NGOs, see Nongovernmental organization (NGOs) The NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute (2004), 240 Niens, U., 58, 230
Index 9/11 attacks, 124 Nisbett, R. E., 22, 31, 226, 297, 310 Nobunaga Oda (1534–1582), 242, 243 n2 Nolan, P. D., 284 Nomothetic science, 12, 237–238 Nondualism and unity infinity symbol, or M¨obius Strip (∞), 295 Nongovernmental organization (NGOs), 73 Noor, N. M., 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 161–171, 296, 297, 307–320 Norenzayan, A., 22, 31, 310 Norm Violation Theory, 51 Norris, P., 124 Nosek, B. A., 281 Nuclear disarmament, 221 Nuclear war, 132 Nur, N. A. M., 164 O Ochs, E., 178 Oepen, M., 154 Ohbuchi, K., 4, 12, 221–233 OIC, see Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) Olick, J., 22 Olympics “Peace Festival,” 221 Omar, A., 164 O’Neill, T., 79 Open coding process, 199 nodes, use of, 200 Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), 175 Organizing agency, 204, 207 Oyserman, D., 310 P Pacific War, 222, 230, 243 Paez, D., 177 Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK), 66 Pakistan-sponsored Pan-Islamic propaganda, 68 Palestinian struggle, 196 Pancasila (five principles of Indonesia), 157 Pandey, G., 43, 44, 46, 54 Pandey, J., 50, 51 Panexperientialism, 302 Panggabean, R., 86 Panikkar, K. M., 48, 49 ‘Paradise on earth’ (Kashmir), 65 Pargament, K. I., 222 Park, J., 222 Parker, I., 132, 192 Parkinson, J., 163 Path model intergroup forgiveness, 231f
Index Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology (journal), 18 Peace and Development Communities (PDCs), 189 Peacebuilding, definition/sub-categories, 76 Lederach’s (1997) model, 77 levels of leadership, 77 Peace by Peaceful Means, 8 Peacekeeping//building/making, 76 Peace psychology, 4 features of, 132 Peace psychology in Asia, nature of applications of, 5, 7, 9, 10, 13 culture and peace psychology, 7–8 Baku Bae, 7 Pela-Gandong, 7 embeddedness of peace and violence in macro-layers, 3–8 interconnectedness of direct and structural peace, 8–11 interfacing direct and structural peace, 10–11 political history and peace psychology, 4–7 Ambon conflict, 6 Cold War, 5 divide et impera (divide and rule), 4 impact of WorldWar II, 4 Indonesian pesantran, traditional institutions of Islamic learning, 4 Malaysia’s longtime party in power UMNO, 6 Nanjing Massacre, 4 Tanjung Priok massacre, 5 social structures and peace psychology, 9–10 studying subjectivities in macro-human phenomena, 11–17 narrative–design peace psychology, 12 nomothetic and narrative sciences, 12 peace psychology in Asia as context saturated and time embedded., 15–17 Peng, K., 22, 31 Pennebaker, J. W., 46 People First Party (PFP), 262 People Power Revolution (1986), 204 People’s Republic of China (PRC), 249, 252, 255, 265–266, 268t, 270 Perception of intergroup relations by national identity, 264t Perugini, M., 284 Pesantren gender, 155 Pesantrens, 148–149, 153–156
337 kiai (director), 148 Pettigrew, T. F., 54, 166, 168, 231, 296 PFP, see People First Party (PFP) Philippine, human-technology interface in contributions to peace psychology, 215–217 social movements/civic engagement, 211–214, 215–217 method, 197–201 procedures, 198–201 sample representation, 198 nonviolence, technologies in, 195–197 agentic approach to human functioning, 196–197, 214–215, 214f communication technologies, role in, 195 conceptual frame, 196–197 internet and websites, modern, 196 procedures coding procedure, 199 data analysis procedure, 199–200 data-gathering procedure, 198 selective coding, interfacing and modeling, 200–201 results, 201–206 See also Human-technology interface Philippines Maguindanao, 179f People Power movements in, 311 Phillips, R., 164 Philpot, C. R., 58, 229 Physicalism, 301 Piagam Islah (“reconciliation agreement”), 108 Pieris, J., 90 Pinochet, Augusto, 196 Pir Panjal range (302 paradise on earth) “Places of sin” (tempat maksiat), 125 Pohl, F., 4, 6, 8, 13, 147–159, 300, 311 POK, see Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (POK) Poliakov, L., 282 Polynesians, 24 Pool, I., 195 Poortinga, Y. H., 24 Positioning theory, 173–174 ‘Positive peace,’ 78 Post-Cold War peace psychology, scope of, 289 Potter, J., 25, 131 Prakash, S., 67 Pratto, F., 27, 54, 259 Pratyabhijna school (part of Kashmir Shaivism), 302
338 PRC, see People’s Republic of China (PRC) Preah Vihear Temple, 221 ‘Primordialism,’ 71 “The principle of acceptability to Maori,” 26 “The principle of respect for property rights,” 26 “Program Pengembangan Civic Education di Lingkungan SMA Muhammadiyah di Indonesia,” 153 “Proletariat” (poor workers), 282 Proselytism, 165 Prosperous Justice Party, 158 Pruitt, D. G., 221 Przeworski, A., 72 Psychoticism or neurosis, 126 Punyani, R., 46 Puri, B., 67, 68 Q Qing conquerors, 250 Quantum social science, 301 Quibria, M. G., 316 Quintos-Deles, T., 177 Quisumbing, M. A., 174 R “Radical Muslims,” 129, 140 Radio Bandido, 204, 206 Radio Veritas, 204, 205 Ramakrishnan, V., 45 Ranked honor, era of, 291 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), 45 Rata, A., 30, 32 Rath Yatra (chariot march), 46 See also Babri Masjid Rational choice or game theory, 109 Rawls, J., 283 Reasons for joining MNLF, 185–186 Reeves, P., 46 Reform-openness policy, 266 Reicher, S., 23, 46, 266 Religious radicalism, psychology of, 126–133 “Conservative-Exclusionist Muslims,” 130 features of peace psychology, 132 five beliefs, 127 gaps, identified, 128 “Liberal Muslims,” 129 method of study, 129–131 Moghaddam’s six-floor staircase to terrorism, 128 “Radical Muslims,” 129 social constructionist psychology and, 131–133 streams of Indonesian Islam, 130
Index types of violence, 130–131 See also Indonesian Muslims, violence/ social justice/peacebuilding Ren (goodness, humanity), 167 Republic of China (ROC), 249 Retributive justice, 224 Revolution, definition, 300 Reychler, L., 316 Rheingold, H., 195 Ricklefs, M. C., 152 Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), 54, 259 Rim´e, B., 46 Rique, J., 222 Rise of dualism, 291 “The robbers cave experiment,” 231–232 Robbins, J., 22 Robertson, A., 25, 28 ROC, see Republic of China (ROC) Roe, M. D., 105, 112 Role Theory, 173 Romero, C., 227 Ross, L. D., 297 Rouhana, N., 108 Roy, R., 51 RSS, see Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Rubya Saeed, kidnapping of (1989), 70 Rudman, L. A., 280 Rusbult, C. E., 223 Rust, M. C., 233 RWA, see Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) Ryan, S., 76 S Sabili, 130, 136–141 Sadar-i-Riyasat, 67 Saguy, T., 168 Sakamoto, Ryoma (1835–1867), 242 Samuels, S. M., 297 Samurais (Japanese warriors), 242–243 Sanford, R. N., 127 Sangh Parivar, 46 Saniman, R., 163 Santri (students), 148 SARA (Suku, Agama, Ras, Antar-Golongan), 5 Sarkar, S., 43 Sarkar, T., 43 Savarkar, V. D., 45 Schiavo-Campo, S., 174 Schmidle, R., 174 Schudson, M., 115, 116 Schwandt, T., 14 Schwartz, B., 23
Index Schwartz, J. L. K., 281 Schwartz, S., 21 Schwartz, S. H., 225 SDO, see Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) “Security dilemma,” 291 Segall, M. H., 24 Seifert, F., 22, 59 SEM, see Structural equation model (SEM) SEM of psychological basis and ideology of national identity, 262f Sen, A., 59 Sen, R., 4, 8, 13, 15, 29, 35, 43–60 Sen, S., 43 September 11 episode, 65, 66 Shafi‘i school of law, 151 Shah, A., 12 Shah, T. S., 47 Shah Reza Pahlevi, 123 Shalaha, 108 n1 Shankar, J., 57, 59 Shao, Y. L., 279 Shariah law, implementation of religious education, role of, 158–159 Sharma, C., 302 Sharma, S., 70, 74 Sheikh Abdullah (Prime minister of Jammu and Kashmir), 67 Sherif, C. W., 231 Sherif, M., 231 Shiguan Jiutan, 279 Shih, C. -F., 256 Shih (Taiwanese nationalist), 256 Shnabel, N., 109, 111, 112 Showa era, 34, 243 Shriver, D. W. Jr., 110, 112 Shriver’s model of reconciliation, 112 “Shunyata” (emptiness, Mahayana Buddhism), 302 Sibley, C. G., 14, 15, 21–36, 313 Sibley, C. S., 25, 27, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34 Sidanius, J., 24, 27, 259 Siddique, S., 153 “Silent memory,” 106 Sim, J., 222 Simla pact/agreement (1971), 67 Simons, L. M., 205 Singh, A. K., 43, 44, 48, 50 Singh, P., 50, 51 Singh, P. P., 68 Sinha, D., 50, 51, 55 Sino-Japanese War (1895), 29, 34, 35, 243, 250
339 “SIPILIS” (secularism, pluralism, and liberalism), 136 Slavery, abolition of, 243 Slocum, N., 174 Slovik, L. F., 223 Slugoski, B., 232 “Small but Beautiful Taiwan,” 258 Smart/Globe, 206 Smith, A. D., 46, 253 Smith, E. E., 310 Smith, E. R., 58 Smith, H. J., 225 Smith, L. T., 31 Smith, M. M., 229 Smith, R., 226 Smock, D. R., 312 Snodgrass, D. R., 162 Snowball method, 198 Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), 54, 258 Social identity theory, 33, 265 Social representations definition, 22 of history, steps to operationalizing, 31–32 See also Culture/social representations/and peacemaking of world history across 24 societies, 30 Social representations theorists (SRT), 23 Soebahar, A. H., 155 “Soku”, 296 Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD), 176 Spalding, L. R., 283 SPCPD, see Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD) Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD), 176 Speech act theory, 132 Srivastava, R., 50 SRT, see Social representations theorists (SRT) Stallworth, L. M., 54 State Institutes for Islamic Studies (Institut Agama Islam Negeri [IAIN]), 149 State Islamic Colleges (Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri [STAIN]), 149 State Islamic Universities (Universitas Islam Negeri [UIN]), 149 Stein, D. J., 229, 230 Stephan, C. W., 57 Stephan, W. G., 57 Storz, M. L., 167 Strategic Agency, 204 Strauss, A., 198, 199, 200 Street Agency, 203, 207
340 Strelan, P., 224, 233 Structural equation model (SEM), 261 “Structural violence,” 285 Suara Muhammadiyah, 130, 136–140 Suharto regime, 107, 116, 124, 157 Sultan Ternate, 87 Sun Yat-sen, Dr., 256 Suwa, K., 4, 11, 12, 15, 237–247, 294, 313 Symbolic agency, 207 Symbolic biculturalism, 28 “Symbolic reserve,” 22 SZOPAD, see Special Zone of Peace and Development (SZOPAD) T Tahrik (movement), 65 Taiwan, national identity in Chinese vs. Taiwanese consciousness, 253–256 colonization of Taiwan by Dutch, Spanish and Han Chinese, 250 double identity, dilemma of, 249 emergence and developing of, 252–253 components of national identity, 253 ethnic groups, basis of conflict, 250–251 KMT’s rule and identity imposed on Taiwanese, 250 stages in Taiwan’s history, 250 Taiwanese inside- and outside-province, structural conflict between, 250–251 ethnic groups, historical representations/ evaluations, 251–252 authoritarian to democratic system, 251 1979 Meilidao incident, 251 geography of Taiwan, 250 ideologies and relevant factors of (study 1) methods, 257 results, 259–263 imagined future nationhood (study 2) methods, 267 results, 267–269 stories for, 270–272 international relations with US, 265 perception of ethnic inequality, 263–265 relations with China (PRC), 265–266 Taiwanese consciousness, 256 vs. Chinese culture, 251 Taiwanese/Chinese identity of Taiwanese, changes tracked in surveys, 254f Taiwan-loving-ism, 261 Taiwan’s history contemporary leaders in, 251
Index stages in, 250 Tajfel, H., 21 Takada, N., 4, 12, 221–233 Takaku, S., 229 Takano, N., 239 Takeshima Island, 221 Tam, T., 58, 229, 230, 231 Tandava (dance of mass destruction), 44 Tanjung Priok Case, reconciliation context, 105–108 See also Collective memory for reconciliation purposes and building peace Tanner, E., 196 Taoism, 302 Tarrazona, H. M., 206 Tausch, N., 51, 56, 58, 166 Taylor, D. M., 50 Technologies node, 200 Technology, definition, 197 Teichman, Y., 127 Terrorism, Moghaddam’s six-floor staircase to, 128 Themes for peace psychology in the post–Cold War environment, 21 Theories of conflict, violence and separatism, 70 Theory of benevolent authority, 30 A Theory of Justice (Rawls), 283 Theory of Schwartz (1992), 225 Theory on evolution of inequality, 284 Thoresen, C. E., 222 Tim Pencari Fakta (fact-revealing team), 107 Tint, B. S., 3, 105, 112, 167, 307 Toengeren, P. V., 100 Tokugawa, Ieyasu (1542–1616), 242, 243 n2 Tolerance, 17, 125, 133, 134t, 136, 137, 151, 153, 155, 158, 159, 225, 300, 320 “Tolerant Islam,” 125 Tradition-Conservatism, 259 Transgression, 58, 223, 227, 228, 233 TRC, see Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Treaty of Waitangi, 24, 33, 313 Treaty on Basic Relations (1965), 222 Triandis, H., 22, 310 Trijono, L., 91 Tripathi, R. C., 50, 51, 52, 59 Tripoli Agreement, 175 Trivedi, S., 46 Tropp, L., 168, 231, 296 “True forgiveness,” 223
Index Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), 107, 108, 110, 114, 116, 118, 121, 229, 230 Tschudi, F., 290 Tsunami, 237 Tu, W. M., 167 Turner, J. C., 21 Two-nation theory (Lee Teng-hui), 256 The 228 Incident, 250, 252 Tyler, T. R., 225 U Uleman, J. S., 266 UMM, see Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM) UMNO, see United Malays National Organization (UMNO) United Malays National Organization (UMNO), 162 United Nations Military Observer group (India/Pakistan), 66 Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang (UMM), 153 Ury, W., 290, 292 US Agency for International Development (USAID), 159 Us vs. Them and Gandhi: The Case of Hindu–Muslim Conflict in India (Sen), 53 V Vajpayee, Atal Bihari (Indian PrimeMinister), 75 Vajrayana Buddhism, 302 Vale of Kashmir, 66 Valsiner, J., 43 Value theory of Schwartz (1992), 225 Van der Merwe, H., 314 Van Langenhove, L., 16, 173, 174 Van Lange, P. A. M., 224, 225, 233 Varshney, A., 43, 45, 46, 54, 55, 56, 57 Vayrynen, T., 75 Verette, J., 223 VHP, see Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) Victim bias/justice bias, 221 Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Psychology, 32 Vienings, T., 314 Violence domestic, direct/structural, 130 International, direct/structural, 130 Violence, types of, 130–131 Violent separatism Dabla, Nayak, and Islam-ul (2000), 73
341 ethnic factor, 71–72 Kashmiri Pandit Hindus, effect of violence, 74 kidnapping of Rubya Saeed in 1989, 70 ‘Primordialism,’ 71 sexual abuse, 74 violence and human suffering, 73–74 See also Jammu and Kashmir, political violence and peacebuilding Virtual agency, 207 Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), 45 Vision 2020, 170 See also Malay-Chinese relations in Malaysia Voci, A., 230 Volf, M., 300 Vollhardt, J. K., 51 W Wagner, R. V., 3, 100, 126, 133, 167, 307, 316, 319 Wagner, W., 22, 46, 47, 52, 53, 59, 60 Wahid, Abdurrahman (President of Indonesia), 90 Wake, J., 101, 102 Wakimae (finding one’s place), 298 Walker, R., 25, 30 Wallace, H. M., 228, 233 Wang, D., 281 Wang, F. -C., 251, 256, 263 Ward, C., 24, 237 “War on (Islamist) terrorism,” 141 Webb, T., 299 Weber, M., 71, 276 Weiner, B., 223 Wei, W., 250 Wendt, A., 301 We or Our Nationhood Defined (Golwalkar, Madhav Sadashi), 54 Wertsch, J. V., 23, 54 Western political theory (Fukuyama, 1992), 30 Wetherell, M., 25, 131 White, B. J., 231 White collar workers, 277 Whitley, B. E., 259 Whitney, G. A., 223 Wilber, K., 302, 303 Wilkinson, S. I., 43, 45, 54, 55 Willhelm, A. G., 195 Williamson, W. P., 54, 126 Wilson, C., 85 Wilson, M. W., 24 Winslade, J., 173
342
Index
Winter, D. D., 3, 100, 133, 290, 307, 319 Wohl,M. J. A., 232 Wong, D. S. W., 31 Worchel, S., 229 World Cup Soccer tournament (2002), 232 World War II, 4, 5, 9, 11, 15, 29, 30, 34, 242, 243, 245, 250, 258, 309 Wu, N. -T., 251, 256, 263
articles including key terms, 240f and Asahi Shimbun, influence on Japanese public opinion, 239–241 Yoshikawa, M., 295 Yuan, H. -L., 265 Yue, X. D., 30 Yuval-Davis, N., 165
X Xianpin Aifu (rejecting the poor while greeting the rich), 280
Z Zakaria, R., 46 Zawawi, I., 161, 162, 164 Zechmeister, J. S., 227 Zen Buddhism, 302 Zerubavel, E., 23 Zhong, D. P., 277 Zhou, F., 9, 10, 11, 12, 275–285, 293 Zhou, S., 196 Zunes, S., 204
Y Yagnik, A., 46 Yamori, K., 239 Yang, K. S., 21 Yasukuni shrine, 30 Yomiuri Shimbun
